Rethinking Global Institutions with Hugh Dugan & Daniel Wagner
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Summary
In this episode of "The Non-Nonsense Sustainability Podcast," host Ildiko Almasi Simsic is joined by experts Hugh Dugan and Daniel Wagner to discuss the evolution of global institutions. With decades of experience, Dugan and Wagner explore how these organizations can adapt to modern challenges.
The conversation delves into the historical context and current struggles of multilateral organizations like the UN and international financial institutions (IFIs). The guests highlight issues such as accountability, political influence, and the need for technological integration to maintain relevance in a rapidly changing world.
Dugan and Wagner emphasize the importance of reforming these institutions to ensure they continue to serve global needs effectively. They propose embracing technology and enhancing accountability as crucial steps for these organizations to remain impactful and efficient.
Highlights
Hugh Dugan and Daniel Wagner discuss the need for reform in global institutions.
The UN and IFIs struggle with accountability and political influence.
Technological integration is crucial for the future relevance of these organizations.
China's influence in multilateral organizations is a significant point of discussion.
The UN's readiness platform and convening power are highlighted as strengths.
Multilateral Accountability Associates aims to help organizations embrace change.
The role of AI and technology in improving institutional efficiency is explored.
Key takeaways
1. Global institutions like the UN and IFIs need to adapt to remain relevant.
2. Accountability and political influence are major challenges for these organizations.
3. Technological advancements, including AI, can enhance institutional efficiency.
4. China's growing influence in multilateral organizations raises concerns.
5. The UN's ability to convene nations is a key strength despite its challenges.
Timestamped breakdown
[0:08] — Introduction to New Multilateralism: Host Ildiko Almasi Simsic introduces the topic and guests, Hugh Dugan and Daniel Wagner.
[1:55] — Motivation for Writing the Book: Dugan and Wagner discuss their concerns about the future of multilateral organizations.
[4:26] — Accountability in IFIs: Daniel Wagner explains the importance of accountability in international financial institutions.
[6:57] — UN's Scope Creep: Hugh Dugan describes the improvisational nature of the UN's operations.
[9:44] — Historical Context of IFIs: Discussion on how IFIs have evolved and the challenges they face today.
[12:16] — UN's Political Challenges: Hugh Dugan talks about the political dynamics affecting the UN's effectiveness.
[19:43] — China's Role in IFIs: Daniel Wagner discusses China's dual role as a lender and recipient in IFIs.
[24:41] — UN Security Council Dynamics: The conversation shifts to the challenges within the UN Security Council.
[34:32] — Strengths of IFIs and UN: Dugan and Wagner highlight what these institutions are doing well.
[38:01] — Role of Technology and AI: The potential impact of technology and AI on global institutions is explored.
[43:24] — Multilateral Accountability Associates: Dugan and Wagner explain their organization's role in promoting institutional reform.
Edited transcript
Welcome back to the non-nonsense sustainability podcast. I'm Ilico Almashi Simik and today we're discussing the new multilateralism. Why is that important? Because these institutions are shaping development finance, cross-border politics, risk, and contribute directly to sustainability initiatives. Today is a special episode because I'm joined by not one but two experts who wrote a book about it. The first guest is Daniel Vagner, CEO of Country Risk Solutions and managing director of the Multilateral Accountability Associates. He has more than three decades of experience assessing cross-border risk and he's an authority on political risk analysis and insurance. He's worked for four multilateral development banks and he was an adaptation finance lead and technical advisor on private capital mobilization for COP 28. He has authored 12 books and over 700 articles on current affairs and risk management. My other guest is Hugh Dugan, who's the president of the Multilateral Accountability Associates and a career diplomat who served as a US delegate and senior adviser to 11 US ambassadors to the UN. On top of that, he was also a former special assistant to the president and the senior director on the National Security Council. So, Hugh, Daniel, welcome to the show and thank you for joining me to talk about this new book that you wrote together.
I read this with great excitement and interest. I marked some aspects for us to cover. What was the main motivation for you to write this book and why now? The motivation for us to write this book is that we're both really concerned about the future of multilateral organizations because they're not keeping pace with the dynamic, rapidly changing world that we're living in. As you know, these organizations, many of them were created 80 years ago, some a little bit less than that. And the problem is that they have not really kept pace with technology. They haven't kept pace with the number and intensity of conflicts. They're not necessarily in danger of failing. And these organizations are too important to fail. We want them to succeed. And that's why we ultimately wrote this book because we want to give them a sort of a prescription and a way to think about what to do in the future to stay relevant and important.
Thank you very much for the question. I've looked at the United Nations my entire career. I grew up in a family of eight children. So it seemed like a natural place to be. Multilateralism is really how the world works once you leave the nest. That's a daily occurrence. So I was looking at some UN documentation and I was typing in some information and the spell check on my computer said, "Do you mean untied nations?" when I wrote United Nations. I thought that's horrible that the computer actually is as cynical as most of the world suddenly that the United Nations are in fact untied and that we need to address the phenomenon in the public mind that the organization is irrelevant or can't function as intended. I can see why that impression exists, but I'm not going to give into it. Okay. So, obviously this book is a lot about accountability and how to make these institutions fit for the 2025 and going forward. In the show, we do have the buzzword battle where I have Bob the buzzer and I ask my guest to explain a concept using simple words. Because the book is structured as such that Danielle is covering the international financial institutions and Hugh is covering the UN institutions. I was thinking maybe Danielle you could tell us more about what accountability and capital mobilization means in an IFI context.
Well, this is ultimately about the systems, rules, and decision-making capabilities of these organizations and how they are directed, managed, and overseen. Are they being held accountable? In many instances, they are not. There's a variety of reasons why they are not, but among them, the most important is that we have entrenched interests. We have incredible politization and you put these types of things together and you find that ultimately these organizations are not being held accountable and accountability is the centerpiece for what is going to be the prescription for success for these organizations. You talked about capital mobilization for the IFIs, the MDBs. That's absolutely central of course. The question is how can they become more oriented toward effective capital mobilization and I would bring to your attention a couple of things. One is they don't necessarily take as much risk as they could or should. You know, in the world of lending, the private sector doesn't like to go necessarily to places that are too risky and they rely on governmental organizations to take that risk for them to sort of give them a green light to lend and to invest. And on that basis, it's incumbent upon the MDBs and the IFIs to agree to take the risk that the private sector will not take. And in many of these organizations they don't do that. They stop at say triple-B rating. And what ends up happening is that the poorest and the neediest countries get the least amount of funding and support from these organizations because they don't want to take the risk that they were designed to take.
That's part of the private sector aspect of the whole equation. And now if returning towards the UN, I think one of my suspicions that was confirmed by your book was that there are different organizations and agencies and they all have mandates that somehow overlap. So I'm going to ask you Hugh to explain this scope creep without a buzz word in 60 seconds. The buzz word is improvisation. And when you go to see improv comedy, the key is that they continue to hand off the idea to the next person. There's always a and and what and oh really, there's no, there's no but there's there's always this idea that we need to continue passing along the idea and the fun. And so when you get 193 countries in the room and they decide that they're going to engage with each other, you encourage that. You encourage the next person to say something. You want them to have buy in. And over time, this has created a forum that people attend, but it's also created an enormous number of ideas, many of which never get fully developed because there's always a next yes and before the first one gets fully developed. And so over time, to not discourage participation, we let this happen. We let this proliferation of ideas hang in the ether. and none of them really get as fully implemented as they potentially could and we don't discourage the next yes and because we want to maintain that buy into the organization. Well, it's gotten to a point now where the yes ands really need to start to be but what ifs or maybe slowdowns or let's try that in more details. So, we've got to get the improvisational aspect of the UN more under control so that we can actually start implementing thoughtfully and constructively some of the good ideas that have been hanging out there. Not to discourage new ones along the way. We need to keep that enthusiasm. We don't want to kill the vibe in the room and turn it into a lousy improv act after all and let people leave upset. We need to keep them engaged, but we also need to start to develop and maintain consistency in what we've identified as necessary. And that's only going to be possible if we hold our managers accountable to take some of those ideas and work them up, not get distracted, and not turn those ideas into their own play things for their own narrow interests.
I really like this explanation and this really, you know, makes it very clear for everyone who's not familiar with the UN system what's actually happening there. Daniel already started talking about the history of these institutions. So maybe we can go into a bit more detail about how did we get here? How do we get to 2025 with 80-year-old institutions that changed a little bit but not enough to accommodate and keep up with modern times? Maybe we start with the IFIs first. Sure. So as I was alluding to earlier these organizations they have a mandate they have operational regulations and one of the keys is to remain true to those but also you know how to become everything that they can and should be within the scope of these operational regulations. Some of these ops have been enhanced over the years others have not. Sometimes when the enhancement has occurred, it hasn't really amounted to much of anything. Oversight, that's a word I would use. Governance another and accountability. If there was effective oversight and accountability, then a lot of the sort of mission creep and you know ineffective approach to getting things done would not have occurred. That's a big reason why we call our organization Multilateral Accountability Associates because it really is all about accountability at the end of the day.
But accountability to whom? Because I you know I had recently an interview with the head of accountability mechanisms from IFIS and even they have an external accountability mechanism that keeps the accountability mechanisms accountable. Accountability can be many things to many different people, right? But at the end of the day, it's all about keeping pace with the times, remaining effective, remaining efficient. And in terms of who they are accountable to, well, of course, they're accountable to their shareholders. They should be accountable to the governments that own them. They should be accountable to the employees that work for them. and they should be accountable to the people who ultimately rely on them. And that perhaps is the biggest issue because there's a lot of poor developing critically needy countries that aren't getting what they need from these organizations. Yes. And I guess the difference between the IFIs and the UN is that the UN is a bit more political. It was set up in a completely different political climate with you know the power in the world being distributed differently than it is today. So in terms of the UN not keeping up with the times what are some of the main reasons you have seen throughout your career here?
Well there was an urgency to create the UN after two world wars. There was a total shock value to what has been previously civilization and there was an agreement out of urgency almost not needed to be spoken that this type of thing had to exist. We needed a central forum a clearing house. We needed an opportunity to go somewhere where we could cool our heels when things were too tense between countries. We needed something where we could share some perspective on the future of the world and mostly to prevent another war from happening. So the urgency was obvious. The big threat I'd say natural threat so to speak to the UN is time because those who existed at that point no longer are alive. We don't feel that urgency that that requirement. When we go to the countryside, we see an old fence along the property line. We think what's that for? Let's tear it down. It's ugly. Not until winter comes then you know why it was put up there. So we don't have that historical memory of urgency why we need this mechanism. And therefore we've gotten complacent with its existence. We've gotten used to it. It's become a proxy for other things. It quickly became a proxy for the Cold War. And so we need to reidentify what it is that made it so critically necessary to create it because that hasn't changed. Human nature hasn't changed in 80 years. And we need to identify individuals with perspective on history and maintain the ideals that that history required of us to identify in the UN charter and to see how they are real and need to be applied in our world today. They are somewhat timeless. The principles the purposes of the charter need to evolve. Purposes and principles go together but they're not the same thing. But principles for peace and security for enabling social and economic prosperity and all with respect to human rights in the world are not time bound. And so we need to maintain the purposes. Those purposes are going to be identified by accountability accountability to the actors that serve the member states on a daily basis and accountability for those member states because they are each partial owners of this organization and they should bear responsibility for its proper stewardship.
Could I just add I do one one point on the politization that is certainly not only the domain of the UN organizations. It permeates all of the multilaterals. And anyone who has worked in any of these organizations will understand exactly what I'm talking about. You know, you have to basically be an axe murderer to get fired from one of these organizations. And if you started early enough because millennials, we don't get the good contracts anymore. Fair point. Well, whether you're a consultant or whether you are a full-time a longtime employee, the axe murderer analogy applies. I've seen it in every multilateral I've been in. And sometimes the politics associated with these organizations work in its favor and sometimes it absolutely does not. Yeah. And I feel like the other difference is that maybe the IFI there is the capital contribution but it's also making enough money on its loans and operations to cover operational costs. And the UN is not set up that way. The UN is set up to implement these programs with no financial return. Hugh, do you see how that changes the perspective on efficiency and KPIs?
Yes. In fact, our initiative, Multilateral Accountability Associates, calls itself the Wall Street desk of the multilateral industry. And, when we talk about Wall Street, most industries, automotive or food or housing, are disciplined by market forces that exist separately from their boards of directors. They can't dictate market forces, interest rates, and supply and demand. All of those things are disciplining factors in the commercial world. When it comes to multilateral organizations, we are benevolent so to speak organizations and we don't get disciplined by market forces because there is no stock market for the UN shares. And so what we've identified is a need to serve as a proxy so to speak Wall Street desk over this entire industry, not just the United Nations itself, but what we call the multilateral organization industry. there scores of them and by some estimates you could say that they're budgeted at about 80 billion dollar a year with a B which would put them well above the GDP of over 130 member states in the world. So it's not just a passing fancy that we need to see this thing organized better. It's got more more economic power than most many most of the countries that are members of the organization. And therefore we have to see this not just as a goodwill effort but as its own industry which Daniel has described rightly has its own internal biases, processes, and rewards systems for the secretariat and their employees that make it difficult to hold them accountable because there is no disciplining force of a market out there. So our multilateral accountability organization is developing metrics. We hope that they're as effective and might suggest where performance is and where it is not. In lieu of not having economic and financial metrics, we're going to identify other metrics that should serve as disciplining forces for the public and the stakeholders of the UN and the world to reflect upon and then to perhaps demand better accountability and performance of the organizations or at least tone down their expectations of the organizations because our expectations will always exceed our abilities which is fine. And it's good to be optimistic, but the stewards themselves have to know when they're throwing too much on the UN plate. And the secretariat staff there have to know when to say, "Okay, slow down. We can't manage that." So far, none of that is happening. They're always willing to throw more at it. And the secretary of staff is always willing to grow its footprint. And without a disciplining force of deciding what are the metrics of success of a nonprofit basically organization this cycle will continue and it will devolve into an irrelevant arrangement in the world.
And I guess the other thing you talk about in a book is how based on the national contribution you have certain number of seats for certain countries so that they're proportionately represented. That's not new for IFIs either because a lot of them only hire nationals of member countries and when they're looking at senior appointments these nationality and background does play a role. Danielle, how do you see countries delegating people in IFIs to take on leadership roles shape the investment climate? And I know you bring the example of China. So maybe that's what you were thinking of mentioning. Sure. First of all, for the benefit of your viewers, these organizations do have strict mandates for exactly how many country nationals they are supposed to employ. If a country owns 10% of the capital, they shouldn't have more than 10% of the workforce. And most of them are pretty good about that, but not all of them. And of course, the consultant workforce is immune from all of that. But for example, when I worked for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the US is not a member of that organization. And in fact, it was kind of interesting. 5% of the workforce at a given point in time was American or a green card holder, which I found kind of kind of surprising. Where China's concerned, it punches well above its weight in many organizations. The US being UN, excuse me, being foremost among them. And I'll give you the example that the China heads four of the 15 UN agencies. And the US by contrast which is its largest shareholder and has been its most important shareholder and most influential since its founding only heads one of those agencies. So kudos to China in the idea of being able to flex your muscles and use the system to your own benefit. The question becomes to what extent is there a price paid for that? And ultimately there is a price paid for that. You can't blame China in the sense that it's every in every country's interests to maximize their own benefit out of an organization and to try to achieve the maximum amount of influence. But what the example that I gave you points out is that there are gaps and inconsistencies in how the rules are applied. And if those gaps and inconsistencies did not exist, China would never have been able to head four of those 15 agencies. Just one more quick example with the Interamerican Development Bank. You know, China is a very minor shareholder in that regard and they have been punching well above their weight for a very long time to influence the decision-making process at the IADB. I think one of the things that really surprised me in this and that, you know, I've always known but I never consciously thought about is how China is both a shareholder and sometimes one of the biggest recipients of IFI funding.
Yeah, this has been one of my biggest criticisms for many many years. China has cast itself as a developing country and of course many decades ago it was but it hasn't been a developing country for many years and what it tends to do is it remains a large if not the largest recipient of assistance and loans from many IFIs and MDBs while at the same time it's a lender look at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank the AIAB it is a lender from that organization while it's taking money from organizations like the ADB and the World Bank Group. So, what is enables a country to be able to double deal like that? And I think the institutions themselves are guilty of allowing that to happen. Why is it happening? because they need to keep lending large amounts of money in order to remain relevant and in order to show their boards of directors and shareholders that they're, you know, spreading the good wealth around. But in fact, what is pointing out in my mind is that this is simply one of many gaps and inconsistencies that occurs in these organizations. And the other aspect from the book in relation to the UN that was similar to this like I've always known but I never consciously thought about was the security council and the vetos and the membership and this like decades of ongoing conversation on how to change that.
Well, China's enjoyed a great privilege at the United Nations over the years up until about 15 years ago. It paid only about 1% or 2% of the entire UN budget based on the algorithms and calculations of the methodology of payments. It enjoyed however a permanent seat in the security council with the full veto privilege. So it was enjoying quite quite a good situation. However, it did not really take advantage of it. It indulged the rest of the world in this UN enterprise and thought itself relatively above it. But then after being in the World Trade Organization for about 15 years and realizing that it could gain that system quite effectively, it decided let's go into the UN big time and see what we can develop there to our advantage because it seems to be somewhat of a sleeping giant of opportunity for us. And indeed they did that and they've grown into their skin more and more at the UN. Perhaps not larger than they should because they are a huge country on earth. It's just that they had been ignoring the UN for this first 60 70 years. However they have also been met with a larger bill because their economy has changed. So now they are paying much more. But they're still far behind the US and and and China as well. Excuse me in Japan as well and others given given the privilege of the veto and Russia of course has this great privilege now too. So it's been my experience that the UN has been witnessing a resurgence of Chinese interest and the Chinese are looking at the UN more or less as a means to advance its own belt and road initiative and other global aspirations through its hegemic ambitions. And my great observation is that it's attempting a slow a slow hijacking of the UN brand altogether. It's taking these leadership positions around the system. Fair or not, it's doing so. And it's also looking to grow its influence subtly throughout the system, rebranding the golden UN brand. As much as we say the UN is not effective or inefficient, it is a golden brand on the world stage. And if you can masquerade your initiatives under that brand or take advantage of UN development programming somehow organize that programming so that it feeds into your belt and road initiative programming at the same time surreptitiously perhaps then yeah that's China in in 2025 at the United Nations. the rest of the membership need to take that need to be better stewards and not let the authoritarian forces in the world start to hijack the UN brand which is based on liberal internationalism and when I say that I mean it's up to each country to decide to join to stay to leave whatever but it's not it's not a matter of coercing coercing any country to be a UN member or not we don't want the UN to be a coercive mechanism. It needs to be voluntarily driven and voluntarily used. And if China is going to continue to grow its footprint and turn its authoritarian ambitions under a UN brand, we're going to find that it's no longer as liberal an institution and regrettably not as liberal a world scene either.
Yeah. And on the bigger picture, the reason it matters is because the UN has access to incredible resources and they set up programs through their agencies and organizations to support poverty reduction, to support gender equality. And the people or the countries that decide what's the agenda, what's the direction, they ultimately decide what's important for us globally in terms of poverty, gender inequality, sustainability, environmental protection, human rights, and they also decide what gets funded. Right. Yes. And those are all values. You know, we look at the UN as a global common space, as a shared value of the world community, global commons, so to speak. And the riddle again with Wall Street is that if the US or others decide to abandon the UN or back out of it, there's no secondary market for their shares, so to speak. They leave the thing with everything on the table behind them. So that's one of my strongest arguments in Washington is that why would we forsake this enormous investment? We can't sell that investment on a share basis to anybody else. We are going to abandon all of our investment, all of the opportunity that that could be for the future and thereby deny us another outlet for US foreign policy in the world. Why would we leave a tool behind that we could use from time to time when effective for us? And why would we leave our assets behind with no compensation so to speak to our foes who are willing to stay there and exploit the opportunity for their own hegemonic ambitions. So we need to be careful about maintaining the value of our investment. There's no secondary market. It's like your diploma. You went to college. You spent thousands to get that diploma. It's on the wall. One day you're upset with the college. Is there somebody out there that's going to pay you $100,000 for your sheep skin? No. I mean, that's a that's a sunk cost, a sunk investment. Your best value is to grow the brand of your university. Make sure it's functioning well, has scientific endeavors that are meaningful, and to grow the value of your diploma because there's no way you can sell it otherwise. So we need to grow the value of the UN. We can't let our investment squander it. We can't let other people undermine its valuation by turning it into an authoritarian charade for their own hegemonic ambitions.
Yeah. But that assumes that we can agree on some global values. And you know whether that's a reality or just an aspirational idea, it's not up to us to decide. But we're talking about all the nations in the world, right? Yes. Can I just say on that point, you know there have been many Pew studies that have shown time and again that most of the world does not want to be ruled by authoritarian countries and in specific instances China they want to be embracing the liberal values that democracy tends to represent. And so if you if anybody bothered to ask the people of the world what it is that they want, they would find that the America for example that they've known for decades is what they would like to emulate and they would like to have a strong relationship with. You know in politics times es and flows but there are you know certain consistencies about what democracies represent what authoritarian countries represent and the people of the world understand that difference and they've spoken through these surveys. I'd like to offer another buzzword if I may condominium and versus state housing. Now, a condominium is what the UN has. We are partial owners, the United States, as are all the other member states. Maybe we live on the penthouse, and maybe Peru has the fourth floor back, you know, one bedroom. Who knows? But each of us is obliged to pay a certain amount to maintain the organization on a dues basis, our monthly fee. Once in a while there are emergencies out there. There's a peacekeeping operation that needs to be set up. There's a humanitarian crisis, we are then asked to have a special assessment, we need to give something a little extra and above just to make sure that things hold together. And that's understood when you go in. And then from time to time, you're going to want to have a holiday party and you're going to want to give some type of extra benefit to the manager for doing a good job. So you're going to pass around the hat and you're going to ask for some voluntary contributions to make the place even better and more stable and more livable and more home. So that's the condominium that the UN represents to me. It's a place where you choose to be where you can invest what you may or need and where you share the burdens accordingly and that you do it in good a good neighborly fashion versus state controlled housing. If you were to go to China or some other authoritarian regime, they'll put you in a little box in a building 16 stories tall and it's your home. Period. Done. And there's no choice about managing it. Input about quality of life, even the size of the unit. Everybody gets the same thing regardless of your of your abilities and your interest or your entrepreneurial spirit. And you are stuck in a rabbit hutch. And that's the stark difference between having a liberal international order and one that gets hijacked and taken over by authoritarian regime for their own hegemonic ambitions.
Okay. What I liked about the book is that it talks not only about what doesn't work but it also acknowledges the things that do work. So maybe Daniel you could start with the IFIs like what are the things in general that these institutions are doing well and that they should keep doing in the future? Well, first and foremost it's what it is that they represent whether it's conflict resolution or poverty reduction or economic development promotion. Again too important to fail. These are things that the world has always needed and that it continues to need. So what we would like to see is that they do a better job at meeting those primary obligations. And of course this is the reason they were created. It's their biggest potential plus and the biggest potential benefit for the world. Okay. What about the UN? What is the UN doing well that it should keep doing? It serves as a readiness platform. a readiness platform. We saw during the Gulf crisis with Saddam invading Kuwait within hours and days. We had an agreement not just to meet and sit around a table. We actually had outcomes from the security council that set up unambiguous global opinion against what Saddam was doing and a series of resolutions happened quickly. that was a readiness platform put to good use. It was the first time after the fall of the Soviet Union where the organization really stood up and showed its ability and delivered over those many months. So I think that the readiness platform idea needs to be appreciated even though it might not be used every day or it's used poorly or it's seemingly ignored. The fact is it does serve as a place where countries will come together. The power to convene is unmitigated. Over the last 15 20 years, heads of state have been showing up routinely in the autumn in the 150 number range. In the previous 60 years, the UN rarely saw a president or king or monarch come to New York. It was a rare rare thing. And now we see it happen every year. So the power to convene is also very strong and the readiness platform aspect of it is validated by that by that attention given by heads of state and others to at least show up and to realize that maybe they aren't talking on the same page but they are in the same room and they can read each other's body language. That's so important too. So these are the subtle values of the organization. We could go into many details about how many children are fed and what development is occurring and respect for human rights and we could spend a long time here identifying some of those values some more than others and others that have not really yet been fulfilled. But the actual presence offers a sense of hope on the horizon. When there is a crisis, there is a go-to place. It might not be effective. It might not be the best but in our minds in our minds around the world there is a go-to default mechanism that could serve as a readiness platform and we've become in the habit of going there.
I know in the book you talk about very specific ideas both for the IFI world and the UN and the core message of that last chapter is technology AI and data. Maybe for Daniel, can you elaborate what this means for the IFIs? Well, this is part of the idea of embracing the present and the future. Some of these organizations have done a better job than others of embracing technology. Others are sort of stuck in the past. To be maximally efficient and effective, to be maximally relevant and important, they need to embrace technology. They need to inculcate AI in many of their operations to allow peacekeeping, for example, to foresee where the next attack is going to occur and where the peacekeepers need to be, etc. That's just one simple example, but it's about streamlining operations. And that also ultimately means if you're going to streamline operations, you need to, you know, get rid of some staff. And if you try to do that within the context of these organizations, you're going to get a lot of push back. The entrenched interests in these organizations often prevent embracing reform, radical organizational change. And that perhaps is the biggest challenge that they face in this whole question. How do you get the organization, how do you get the people in the organization and the governments behind them to say this isn't working as well as it could and we can do a better job and yes, it's going to be a little bit painful. It's going to take some time, but it needs to be done.
Okay. And what about the UN? Because the UN is notorious for having outdated systems for procurement, no real consensus on adoption of technology even for basic needs of field staff. How do you see AI and technology change the way the UN works? It will take a while for the UN corporate culture to adopt it. When the worldwide web started, there were some enthusiasts in the secretariat. They asked for resources to create a website and they were told no that's that's a passing fancy or we aren't going to bother trying to dabble in that. So they did it on their own on their spare time and in the next year the UN website was the most visited on earth. So the organization begrudgingly came along into modernity that way and it realized it needed to. I believe that'll happen in AI too as many applications however are going to expose the sorts of information arbitrage that exists within the organization that keep some people employed unnecessarily because they withhold information of a sort which the AI will take care of this arbitrage in ways that will expose redundancies and unambiguous ways and identify opportunities to save money and be more efficient. in ways that may not yet be understood. So, I'm excited about the prospect of AI, so to speak, knocking on the UN door in many many ways that the UN can't ignore eventually. And it will far it out a lot of waste and corruption because it will be exposed to the light of day. This arbitrageing of public interest is going to shrink, I hope. And the public in general is taking more of an interest whereby multilateralism really refers to member countries and governments sitting together and we'd like to see the public more engaged and they are more and more engaged because of social media because there are fewer barriers to their opinions. So instead of just multilateralism of countries, we're going to have an everyateralism of countries, civil society, individuals who can engage get feedback. They're doing it now in social media. We want the organization to appreciate that and realize its real strength lies in reaching out to forces in the world that go beyond mere state capitals and their ambassadors sitting at the table. They have to be much more attentive to civil society's needs and to individuals who are learning the internet, who are learning AI, who are going to outpace the UN in its relevance and effectiveness unless the UN gets aboard with that, too. So, it's coming knocking on its door. It's not opening the door, but it's going to have to eventually.
Okay. Okay. Well, I'm obviously on the tech entrepreneurship side of this. So, I'm in touch with a lot of these organizations and the issue is part procurement, part not having a strategy on like actually how to do that because it's theoretically it sounds fantastic that AI will solve the you know risk identification of conflict or other efficiency gains. But how you translate that into software that actually executes a task and that like works with the workflow of employees. I think that's the that's the next challenge. And to wrap up this session, maybe talk a bit more about what your organization, Multilateral Accountability Associates, actually does on a daily basis to sort of address the criticisms and the issues that you write about and make these institutions fit for purpose in this modern times. Well, maybe I'll say a few words and then kick it over to Hugh. So we've assembled a team of people each of whom has decades of experience in the multilateral world. And what we're doing, what our aspiration, if you will, is to help these organizations help themselves by embracing this change and by recognizing and acknowledging some of the shortfalls of these organizations, but embracing a pathway toward the future. with many of the themes that we've already touched upon here. Our objective again is to make these organizations successful, longlasting, and relevant. And if they will allow us to do this, we will help them to help themselves.
Yeah, that's probably my next question to Hugh. How open are these institutions and organizations to talk to you and take your help? I don't expect them to be excited about us. In fact, when we started, I had friends in the secretariat jumping out of the windows. They were quite anxious about the fact that there was heavily heavy scrutiny coming at them and that was very much at the time when Doge was happening in Washington and that was driving a lot of bureaucrats in Washington to their end. So there is an awareness that the public is more and more engaged in assessing the value of the organization and their taxpayers and their leaders are hearing them. And in Washington a year ago, the Senate about 10 months ago, the US Senate and the US House each had draft legislation just to withdraw from the UN altogether. I mean, this was a very commonly held perception on both sides of the aisle. And lo and behold, the White House was the only place that voiced a little bit of potential that the UN held. And so the organization realizes not just the US, but Russia and other major countries have been assessing reassessing their contributions and pulling back on their voluntary contributions and in ways that are a bit unexpected. So you can't ignore that as a disciplining factor when when it's not just the US being the best friend and the best critic when when others are finding better places to spend their money. Let's just put it that way. So the organization we don't depend upon them for their permission to do what we're doing. They're free to listen to what we are proposing and our ideas. We are eager to identify market forces that will support our initiative. We do frankly do not want to be a mouthpiece for any multilateral organization and so to speak take their money and make them look good or be a public relations device for them. So it's a bit it's a bit complicated what role we're going to play. But there is a role for civic civil society for outside scrutiny because the capitals in the world that sit at the UN have not organized themselves well enough to do this properly. They've always left it to the US and then they call the US a villain for so to speak, being critical over the resource allocation of the organization as if we were forsaking multilateralism altogether. And we see that in the headlines with breathless headlines of US hating on the UN. And that's just so unfortunate. What we're doing is trying to be responsible steward. And other countries that have a tiny percentage of the UN budget don't find it in their interest to be, so to speak, critical antagonists. They're happy just to go along to get along. They pay $100,000 in dues in the year for Pete's sake. and and they're not about to to disrupt things for that little bit. So, it's left to the major powers and we're finding the others are coming along with us and the organization can't ignore it and they're in a financial crisis. So unfortunately if it comes down to money disciplining them that seems to work but we'd also like to create other metrics and that's our idea is to create other non-financial metrics that demonstrate effectiveness efficiency and then put those up on the screen and let the world and and other stakeholders of the UN see where this place is valuable and let's put our money in those corners and let's not throw the money into corners of the UN that are redundant or ineffective. in the long term.
Well, I would love to see those KPIs and where the efficiencies lie because as you also point out and as we've talked about, there are parallel sort of initiatives happening between countries, regional development banks, other regional initiatives because it seems to be easier to build something smaller scale than to repair these large scale institutions. Well, the organization depends upon subsidiarity of these regional entities. They're they're not to be seen as competitors or as the undoing of multilateralism. If something can be done closer to home more effectively, so be it. That's where the public is. That's where the end users are. To the extent that that can be done through subsidiarity, and those subsidiaries are in fact in keeping with the principles of the organization, which most of them always are. then then all the more let a thousand flowers bloom so to speak in the world these entities do not compete with the UN if they're promoting UN principles then they're on board and and I think that's where the strength is if we can look to regionals and localities that incorporate UN principles in their workload liberal international views not coercive then that's good for the the UN charter and Danielle I I have a feeling that perhaps IFIs are more open to discussions on where they could do better and how.
Well, the IFIs have gone through many reform efforts, many attempts at significant organizational change, and some have been more effective than others, of course, but I think you're right. They are generally open. They have many, many moving parts, and they recognize that it's one of those things like with, you know, fish, if you don't continue to swim, you die. And so, they know they need to continue to swim. The we're in choppy waters now. The world is a complicated place. And many of these organizations are unaccustomed to operating in these types of environments. And the world has probably rarely if ever been as complicated and facing as many challenges as it does now. So if it's not ultimately the MDVS, IFIs, the UN agencies that are going to lead the world through this, who will? That's why the stakes are so high. I think that's an excellent question for our listeners to share their views and ideas because I honestly don't have a good answer to that. Hugh and Daniel, thank you so much for being here with me today and discussing your new book, which is out now available on Amazon and, I think I've also seen it in some of the stores. We've come a long way with these institutions and organizations. There are some things that have worked and that should continue to work, but with technology and changes in the world, these giants need to adapt to survive. Thank you for being here with me today and thank you. We'll be back with some more next time.
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