A global corporate and government marriage took place last week — and governments and citizens were not even invited as guests. Opinion by. The nuptial agreement commits the two institutions to unprecedented levels of cooperation and coordination in the fields of education, women, financing, climate change, and health. At first glance, this agreement may sound entirely beneficial. Who can be opposed to progress or collaboration by any groups on critical social and environmental challenges?
But the memorandum is not just about cooperation, but rather establishes an institutional home for multinational corporations inside the UN. There is no similar space in the UN system for civil society, for academics, for religious leaders, or for youth.
There may have been two parties at the wedding, but the desire for marriage was most likely driven by the World Economic Forum. WEF has become famous for its glitzy annual gatherings in Davos, Switzerland to which corporate executives and a smattering of celebrities fly in via private jet every January. However it suffers from a legitimacy crisis as its billionaires are blamed by many for causing the global crises they aspire to address.
The Memorandum helps deliver the public legitimacy they crave. In many ways, it starts to implement a plan the World Economic Forum itself started to develop in in the wake of the financial crisis. This plan was a page report entitled the Global Redesign Initiative , which called for a new system of global governing, one in which corporations would be granted equal status to nation-states and to which selected civil society representatives would also be invited.
It would turn the UN into a public-private institution. Why is a business body being given privileged access to a global institution that should be only answerable to nation-states? Who does WEF represent beyond its billionaire stakeholders? This is a troubling development as it undermines a stable global governance system based on a one-country-one-vote system with a clear system of responsibilities and obligations. Multistakeholder governance groups are, by contrast, largely self-selected groups of multinational corporations and those organizations and individuals they want to work with.
