Can we have multilateralism without multilaterals?

AGWA turns 15 next month. I’d like to think we’ve always been focused on results, on being tangible, and on making new insights about water and climate practical even when they suggest important changes in practice, analysis, and policy.

As a writer, being pragmatic also means trying to minimize abstract and highly institutional terms. “Multilateral institutions” would be high on that list. I want to (briefly) break that rule, however. Trust me, though. I promise to end on a pragmatic note!

We are coming to the end of an era that began 75 years ago with a simple proposition: if we can reduce or eliminate poverty, we can reduce conflict. So-called multilateral institutions arose from that basic theory of change. The United Nations, development banks, many think tanks and environmental organizations, and all aid agencies flowed from this core idea: more economically secure, wealthier people will be invested in peace.

At first, multilateralism meant energy, agriculture, and health. In time, poverty reduction came to mean family planning, clean water, protected areas, HIV treatment and prevention, ecological restoration, and reducing the speed and impacts of climate change.

Were multilateral institutions always effective? No. They’ve been slow and often cumbersome. They have sometimes also been captured by narrower, less democratic interests. We could have done better. But they have largely made the world a better, more fair place too. We needed them. We still do.

In the water and climate space, multilateral institutions have been essential for new insights, progress, and testing limits. I’d argue that as a set of partners for AGWA, the development banks, a variety of UN agencies, and some intergovernmental groups showed some of the most creative and entrepreneurial roles in helping create a water-climate agenda. AGWA is itself not a multilateral institution, but it’s hard to imagine us being formed or acting outside of a world populated with multilateral actors. We started off alone, but AGWA has brought all of these groups along together. What was strange and exotic is now normative and substantially mainstreamed. Remarkable, given the relatively short period of time. And I am proud for AGWA to take some credit for the change.

More generally, however, the past eight years has seen an accelerating decline of multilateral institutions. From mostly quiet conversations over the past year or so, I think we’re about to see a leap forward (downwards?). Budgets that declined this year by a few points will fall by tens of points next year. Whole programs will be consolidated — or cut away. Priorities are changing. No particular donor or country is singly responsible for these shifts.

Will these changes be permanent? Will we go back to a system that existed in 2015, 2000, or 1980? Who knows, but movement may be regressive without being retrograde. “Forward” in this case probably means a landscape that looks starker and harsher. If your workplace is hiring in a year, expect to be able to have a lot of highly skilled unemployed people to choose from.

And now: back to the non-abstract real world.

I’ve been thinking about a lot about a quote by the actor Brad Pitt in a movie called The Big Short, about the 2008 financial crisis. Brad Pitt’s character is betting that a major financial crisis is going to occur — a literal bet against overwhelming conventional financial and political wisdom at the time. If his character’s bet is correct, he will make a lot of money. But he also puts a human face on what his bet means: “If we're right about the housing market collapsing, people lose homes. People lose jobs. People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions.” (You can watch the scene here.)

Without multilaterals, human suffering will increase, conflict will increase, poverty will increase. There will be more wars, and they will be more savage. But there will also be fewer girls going to school, damaged families and communities, and less wild species in our forests and oceans. That’s the bet we are all losing. Poorer institutions will not be simply reducing the amount of money evenly across their programs. They will be different kinds of institutions, with different work and targets. At least some of them will disappear altogether, especially those led by individuals who are not adjusting to new realities and think they are waiting for a storm to pass. The multilateral mission is falling behind.

For me, the question is becoming: can we have multilateralism without multilaterals?

In AGWA’s set of issues, the demands for expertise and support on water and climate are increasing — and at a faster rate of increase than in the past. The partners driving issues right now are different as well. I can imagine, for instance, our policy program less focused on the UNFCCC and COPs in the future — we would still have a strong and meaningful policy program even if we were only working with countries and at subnational levels. International cooperation remains important for water and climate even if the means of collaboration does not flow through multilateral institutions.

Ask me again in a year or two, but if I had to predict, we are at a second founding of the a multilateral mission. The narrowing of the passage also reveals the dedication and commitment of those of us who remain. Multilateralism is redefining itself. Peace and poverty alleviation remain important, but how we cooperate (and through what channels that work happens) is evolving rapidly. New champions appear on the horizon. And we can all take comfort that we have agency, judgment, and experience on our side.

John Matthews

Corvallis, Oregon, USA