The page has turned on yet another year, one which saw challenges to democracy and international law, but which also saw more urgent (if not always wise) engagements in multilateral forums as a multitude of threats bore down on policymakers with a force which was both painful to behold and hard to ignore – threats of biodiversity loss and mass deforestation; threats of famine in several global regions and of arms trafficking in many of those; threats of violent storms and oceans struggling more each year to sustain the life of coastal populations; threats from depleted soils which can no longer accommodate an insatiable desire for the corn and grains which feed the animals whose consumption fuels a good chunk of our current climate emergency.
But in some ways the greatest threat of all is related to signs now abounding of the diminution of our basic human capacity, the hardening of our hearts and shrinking of our commitment to accompaniment, our quick-trigger judgments and even conspiracies that we more willingly double down on than change, triggers which have led over and over again to overt violence, which have certainly shrunk the space for negotiation, let alone understanding, and which make it harder and harder to, as the Adele tune would have it, “go easy” on us when easy is called for.
We know from our own lives how threats to safety or financial security – real and imagined — can unlock some of the worst in our species. As the bills pile up, relationships fail to even approximate expectations, children succumb to fresh waves of disease and indifference, and employment options dwindle, an overall decline in civility and the will to accompany those facing greater hardship is perhaps understandable. But our reactions to circumstance often serve only to diminish prospects for altering circumstance. To pull in and self-protect, to forget that what we imagine is “best for me,” is arguably not “best” at all, neither for “me” nor for the web of life without which we are left paddling upstream as the currents only grow in force, these unwelcome reactions are one of the benchmarks of our times.
And we have surely done our share of such paddling over 23 years of existence, advocating without fully committing ourselves to process, dismissing without proposing more viable alternatives, cheering for what turned out in the end to be the “wrong” side of issues and conflicts, investing in the potentially transformational ideas of others only to find on more than one occasion that the entrepreneurial spirit we admired had transformed before our very eyes into yet one more self-interested, overly-branded, funder-obsessed initiative.
Yes, we have at times taken our eyes off the prize, invested in the work of others unwisely, offered assistance to those with no intention to “pay forward” let alone pay back, gone softer on ourselves and the UN than we might have and, at times, been harsher than warranted as well. And as the threats we face multiply and intersect, we know that we need to do more but also better, to highlight and help connect the intersecting threads of policy which are hardly news to our thousands of followers but which turn out to be our signature (perhaps only) relevant skill. We know after many long years that the dangling laces of both shoes need to be firmly tied if we are to strive towards global solutions with confidence and credibility.
Given the stubborn persistence of Covid in recent years, we had every reason to believe that our shoe-tying days might well be over. Even minimal funds were hard to come by, compliance with state and federal directives was becoming more challenging, and interns were lacking in safe spaces (including and beyond my own guest room) where they could experience at least some aspects of the UN community as we and other NGOs limped through a two-year pandemic banishment from UN Headquarters. It would have been easy enough to throw in all the towels on the rack and find some other way to contribute to challenges now too deeply ingrained in us to ignore.
As the worst of the pandemic abated and more or less full (though not always welcome) readmission to UN processes seemed immanent, we made several adjustments we needed to make in light of these priorities: Retain a laser focus on the Security Council and related peace and security mechanisms, tied as always to the evolving development, gender, environmental and human rights triggers of armed conflict. Continue to help local groups find their footing at the UN and, through expanded hospitality, make it possible for more people from a wider span of community interests to share their own concerns directly in UN spaces. Use social media to keep thousands of people with a direct interest in what the UN does without direct access to UN processes a sense of what is happening beyond barely implemented resolutions and other policy promises, and suggest what more can be done to make and sustain relevant community-policy connections. And think — think harder and more creatively with others about what the times we are living through require of each of us.
That’s all we can do for now. It’s perhaps no more than a drop in the bucket in this era of lurching crises, but it’s also felt good over this past year to be able, once again, to contribute in a manner which some appreciate despite our limitations of size and capacity. Give people more than they expect and don’t delude them into thinking that challenges will be solved completely by virtue of whatever pretense we in the middle of global policy spaces are foolish enough to generate.
No one can predict the future, but we can predict that we will make use of whatever tools we can create and sustain to make the connections – among issues and among constituents – that offer the most viable path to the peaceful, sustainable planet we are running out of time to create. Having returned to business after a long and reflective sojourn, it is the least we can do.
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