The United Nations and Civil Society in Times of Change: Four Propositions
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12555 |
| Author | Helmut K. Anheier |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
The United Nations and Civil Society in Times
of Change: Four Propositions
Helmut K. Anheier
Hertie School of Governance
Abstract
The United Nations and organized civil society in the form of international NGOs have yet to find an optimal mode of engage-
ment that works for both sides. This has many reasons, but foremost it is caused by a formalized and politicized administrative
process with, in the end, rather limited participation opportunities for NGOs. The current regime fails to live up to its potential
–adeficit that is becoming more acute as both the UN and NGOs face legitimacy pressures and have to brave geopolitical
and resource uncertainties. In response, the article proposes a more differentiated cooperation model based on functional
roles and new organizational formats. Such an approach could enable a mutually beneficial relationship to emerge between
the United Nations system and international civil society.
Policy implications
•NGO Contracting: A central system for UN contracts and controlling should be established, which could legally and organi-
zationally be outsourced to a private institution.
•NGO Civil Engagement: International civil society should be integrated into UN volunteer services and building on, and
linking with, corresponding service agencies at the national level.
•NGO Whistle-Blowers: The UN needs to figure more prominently as a promoter of transparency and accountability. NGOs
could be part of an independent organizational platform and quasi civil society ‘audit institution’.
•NGO Extension: The UN could act as an innovation platform, clearinghouse and even extension service for international
and global governance challenges brought before it by NGOs.
•World Civil Society Assembly: A space for ideas, a place for debate and exchange, and offering national and international
politics and civil society a forum to meet on an equal footing.
UN-civil society relations
Growth rates reveal one facet of the difficulties underlying
the relationship between the United Nations (UN) and orga-
nized civil society like NGOs,
1
just as the changing geopoliti-
cal and resource environment expose another. Together,
both point to strains that make it increasingly difficult for
the UN and civil society to work together in efficient and
effective ways, being locked, as they are, in an official
regime of recognition and access regulation that allows little
room for innovation. It is also a regime increasingly at odds
with institutional realities, let alone the potential a function-
ing relationship harbours.
Of course, this is not the first paper to lament the rela-
tionship between the UN and organized civil society. Most
prominently among previous attempts is the 2004 Cardoso
Report (United Nations, 2004), which called for major
reforms. It received a mixed reception (Anheier, 2008; Clark,
2008; Willetts, 2006, 2011) and ultimately had limited impact
(Independent Commission on Multilateralism, 2016; Paul,
2012). Likewise, since the 1990s, various reform proposals
2
targeting the UN as a whole or some core aspects of it have
viewed the current system of UN-civil society relations with
critical eyes (Weiss, 2016). Like the Cardoso Report, they
changed little and left the current system largely
untouched.
This article first makes a strong case based on limited UN
capacity and procedural politicization in the changing
geopolitics of the first quarter of the 21st century that threa-
ten to weaken the current system even further. This article
differs most clearly from prior analyses and proposals less in
its diagnosis than in its remedy, advanced in four proposi-
tions. In essence, they call for an end to the current system
and offer to replace it with a more differentiated approach
based on UN needs and NGO roles. In other words, what is
needed is not a reform of the current system –what the
Cardoso Report and others essentially argued –but rather a
new start based on first principles where. Unlike the present
system, the form of UN-civil society relations would follow
function, namely, the purposes and respective roles served.
A complex, troubled relationship
Looking at growth, there is first the uneven development of
the UN itself. The core capacity of the UN has hardly grown
organizationally over the past decades. It struggles with
Global Policy (2018) 9:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12555 ©2018 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 9 . Issue 3 . September 2018 291
Research Article
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