Global Governance Initiative

Governments of the world have achieved universal consensus on the need to confront global challenges collaboratively. Yet while documents such as the United Nations Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have set goals and targets, the world's inter-related problems of security, poverty and environment have received little coordinated attention. Instead, there has been a wide array of competing, overlapping, variably effective, and often wasteful efforts.

It is clear, however, that where progress is achieved towards the goals, the process involves a range of actors acting in pre-determined concert with assigned roles, responsibilities, lines of authority and accountability. Such mechanisms represent the de facto practice of diplomacy for many of the most vital issues the international community faces today. Yet there is no law, code or framework to encompass this reality. 

The New America Foundation's Global Governance Initiative moves beyond the narrow conception of global problem-solving as an inter-state diplomatic enterprise by exploring the existing modes of successful cooperation among an array of diverse actors such as governments, international organizations, NGOs, corporations, philanthropists, and universities. Which models are most effective and scaleable? Which actors are contributing the most resources? What international legal frameworks can be created to capture this new diplomatic context? How is American foreign policy affected by such a diverse array of domestic actors playing these diplomatic roles?

Through issue-oriented seminars, policy papers, public events, and eventually a book it will both re-frame discussions of global governance and produce concrete recommendations towards more flexible and effective structures appropriate to the 21st century context of diffusing power and legitimacy. The Global Governance Initiative is directed by Parag Khanna, who is also a Senior Research Fellow at New America.