Rules of engagement with business are missing

Global multi-stakeholder partnerships and initiatives between public and private actors, which move beyond traditional nation-state multilateralism, are now perceived as the future of international cooperation. The UN is already involved in hundreds of partnership initiatives with individual companies and business associations. ‘Rules of engagement between the UN and private actors,’ a paper by Jens Martens and Karolin Seit from Global Policy Forum, demonstrates that the existing guidelines are weak and highly heterogeneous. Effective and comprehensive rules for such cooperation are still missing.

The non-regulated engagement between the UN and the private sector could result in a loss of reputation, increased influence by private actors on political decision-making, and could divert scarce public resources away from UN goals.

On Wednesday, 25 September 2019, Heads of State and Government met at the United Nations (UN) headquarter in New York to discuss establishing further partnerships, in particular with the private sector, as a means of implementing the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Global multi-stakeholder partnerships and initiatives between public and private actors, which move beyond traditional nation-state multilateralism, are now perceived as the future of international cooperation. The UN is already involved in hundreds of partnership initiatives with individual companies and business associations. “Rules of engagement between the UN and private actors" demonstrates that with just the existing guidelines, which are weak and highly heterogeneous, effective and comprehensive rules for such cooperation are still missing.

The non-regulated engagement between the UN and the private sector represents a major risk for the UN and for realising the SDGs. There are concerns it could result in a loss of reputation, increased influence by private actors on political decision-making, and could divert scarce public resources away from UN goals.

Rather than demanding ever-new partnerships with the private sector, one must ensure that any partnerships set up to achieve the SDGs have added value. A "common and systemic approach" to the engagement between the UN and the private sector, as the UN Secretary-General António Guterres requested in 2017, is overdue.

The UN needs to urgently develop an effective legal and institutional framework for its relations with the private sector. In addition to basic principles, it should establish minimum standards, including detailed selection and exclusion criteria, systematic impact assessments, conflict of interest policies and independent evaluations.

For the UN to realize a regulatory framework it needs to create the necessary conditions to support this work in its secretariats and at the intergovernmental level. This includes building up staff capacity, establishing the office of ombudsperson and setting up an intergovernmental UN body that governs relations with the private sector.

Download the working paper here (pdf, 713KB).

Source: Global Policy Forum (GPF).