World leaders begin convening on Monday at one of the most volatile moments in the United Nations’ 80-year history and the challenges they face are as dire as ever if not more so: unyielding wars in Gaza and Ukraine, escalating changes in the US approach to the world, hungry people everywhere and technologies that are advancing faster than the understanding of how to manage them.
The United Nations itself, which emerged from World War II’s rubble on the premise that nations would work together to tackle political, social and financial issues, is in crisis itself.
As Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week: “International cooperation is straining under pressures unseen in our lifetimes.”
Yet the annual high-level gathering at the UN General Assembly will bring presidents, prime ministers and monarchs from about 150 of the 193 UN member nations to UN headquarters.
The secretary-general says it is an opportunity that can’t be missed — even in the most challenging of moments. “We are gathering in turbulent — even uncharted — waters,” Guterres said. He pointed to, among other spectres, “our planet overheating, new technologies racing ahead without guardrails, inequalities widening by the hour.”
Guterres said he will use the more than 150 one-on-one meetings he has with leaders and ministers to urge that they speak to each other, bridge divides, reduce risks and find solutions — to conflicts, to keep the planet from increased warming, to put guardrails on fast-expanding artificial intelligence, and to find funding for lagging UN goals for 2030 including ending poverty in all countries and ensuring quality education for every child. He said leaders must make progress, not merely engage in “posturing and promises". But UN watchers say that in a deeply polarised world, with no prospects of ceasefires in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, whether the high-level meeting makes any progress remains a big question mark.
Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group, said he is confident three topics will dominate high-level week – US President Donald Trump’s first appearance in his second term, the horrific situation in Gaza, and what’s next for the United Nations as it grapples with major funding and staff cuts, mainly due to the cutoff in US payments to its regular and peacekeeping budgets.
Gowan said he expects the nearly two-year war in Gaza to be the central issue, as Israel launches a major offensive in Gaza City forcing thousands to flee and following a report by independent experts commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council that accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel rejected the allegation, calling the report “distorted and false”.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, has stressed that “Palestine is going to be the huge elephant in this session of the General Assembly”.
It will be front and centre on Monday at a high-level meeting co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia on implementing a two-state solution to the nearly eight-decade Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And the spotlight will be even brighter because the Trump administration refused to give a US visa to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to speak at that meeting and the General Assembly. On Friday, the General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution enabling Abbas to speak by video — as it did in 2022 for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following Russia’s invasion. This year Zelenskyy will be attending in person, and the Security Council is expected to meet on Ukraine on Tuesday.