International Advocacy

Nations. United.

Multilateral organizations and international governance forums, particularly the United Nations, are crucial in addressing global challenges and fostering international cooperation.

They play a vital role in managing global risk, such as pandemics, conflict and insecurity, and natural disasters. They facilitate coordinated responses and support countries fulfill their responsibilities to manage global risk and disasters. 

In an interconnected world facing complex risk, advocacy at the multilateral level can improve disaster risk management – from local to global disasters – and develop new norms for countries to follow in their own national policy. 

Advocating for UN response to complex global shocks

The Pact for the Future is a transformational international agreement outlining how the United Nations intends to reshape and reform itself for future challenges. It recognizes that “we are confronted by rising catastrophic and existential risks, many caused by the choices we make. Fellow human beings are enduring terrible suffering. If we do not change course, we risk tipping into a future of persistent crisis and breakdown”

In the final agreed version of the Pact, member states recognized “the need for a more coherent, cooperative, coordinated and multidimensional international response to complex global shocks and the central role of the United Nations” and have requested that that UN Secretary-General consider approaches to enhance the UN’s ability to coordinate such responses. Global Shield continues to engage stakeholders in ensuring that the UN delivers against this action in the Pact, building on our previous advocacy for the “emergency platforms” concept.

Global risk reports

Existential and global catastrophic risk is appearing as a major consideration in a range of new surveys, polls, analyses, and reports on global risk. These reports are being conducted by a wide range of governmental and non-government organizations, including the UN, which will release a Global Risk Report in early 2025.

Global Shield believes that global risk reports, especially the UN Global Risk Report, must consider the growing global catastrophic risk from all hazards. Policymakers must acknowledge and understand the insights from these reports, compare the results to their own risk and capability assessments, and resolve critical policy gaps.

As a result, Global Shield is taking a number of steps over 2024, including convening a diverse group of organizations that produce these risk reports, developing policy reports on how to translate global risk reports into action, and conducting public and policy engagement around the integration of global catastrophic risk into the “global risk” report ecosystem.

Recent global risk reports