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Three years ago, long before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19, a different kind of virus spread around the world: a piece of malicious software code launched by a nation state. It paralyzed computer networks in hundreds of countries, disrupted global shipping, forced pharmaceutical factories to shut down, and inflicted an estimated $10 billion of economic damage.
On the physical battlefield, a widely accepted set of rules, backed by international law, governs conduct, with the aim of protecting soldiers and civilians. Establishing common rules or guardrails is much harder in cyberspace, where borders can't be easily defined and the tools and tactics of combat are always changing. But it has never been more urgent.
Against this chaotic cyber backdrop, how can governments protect critical healthcare infrastructure and medical research as they mobilize in response to Covid-19? How can citizens and companies work together to prevent the smartphones and computers they rely on for work, education, and staying connected from being hijacked and used to carry out malicious cyberattacks?
The UN has been working for over a decade to establish basic principles, or "norms" in the parlance of international diplomacy, for cyber security. But this problem can't be solved by any one government or group of governments on their own. In recent years, as threats have multiplied, global companies, cyber security researchers, and NGOs have taken a seat at the table. Establishing norms and boundaries around acceptable behavior doesn't mean just modernizing the existing architecture of international governance. It involves rethinking it to account for a 21st century in which life, business, and diplomacy are digitized and the lines between them increasingly blurred.
What's the UN doing about it?
The United Nations has been facilitating discussions on cyber norms since 2004. Discussions at the UN are currently following two tracks. One track, known as the Group of Governmental Experts, consists of representatives from 25 member states. This group has a mandate to study norms, rules and principles of responsible behavior for states in the cyber realm; and to undertake confidence-building and capacity-building measures. Another track, known as the Open-Ended Working Group, is open to any UN member state, as well as the business community, academia, and civil society.
How are others trying to help?
In recent years, businesses and nonprofits have intensified their efforts to raise awareness, analyze cyberattacks, develop norms, share best practices, and increase pressure on governments to act. Governments are critical players by deciding how and when to use state cyber capabilities, but the private sector bears actual responsibility for securing and defending the networks that people rely on for their livelihoods and essential services.
In May, the CyberPeace Institute — an independent initiative dedicated to enhancing the stability of cyberspace backed by Microsoft, Mastercard, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and other corporate and non-profit sponsors — called on world governments to take "immediate and decisive action" to stop cyberattacks against hospitals, medical research facilities, and international public health organizations.
What's needed next?
To achieve lasting stability in cyber space, governments must decide that it's in their own interest to accept limits on how they deploy offensive cyber capabilities in pursuit of political and strategic goals. To achieve this, governments, international organizations, companies, NGOs, and ordinary citizens all will have to work together to raise awareness of the risks that malicious exploitation of the internet poses for people's lives and livelihoods.
This is a complex challenge that can't be solved by any one group acting alone. International dialogue is just the first step. Eventually, widely agreed norms have the potential to evolve into laws and treaties, but before that can happen, all of the groups with a stake in the outcome need to:
- Build confidence: The lack of trust between governments, and between governments and industry, is a big barrier to cooperation. Exchanging information, including establishing hotlines between governments, is one way to build trust.
- Build capacity: Companies and governments that have already implemented tough cybersecurity measures can improve security for everyone by sharing best practices. Countries can also work together, including through international venues such as the UN, to strengthen their capacity to conduct cyber diplomacy.
How can I get involved?
Cyber security is a rare field of international diplomacy in which ordinary citizens can make a real difference. It starts with protecting yourself, your family, and your workplace from common cyber threats. Easy-to-use security features like strong passwords, virtual private networks, and two-factor authentication, which requires a user to enter a code or use a hardware fob in addition to their password when logging in, can help protect sensitive accounts and data. Learning about how hackers can try to manipulate people into voluntarily giving up their passwords or downloading malicious code onto their computers via deceptive emails or phone calls can improve not just your personal security, but the resilience of the entire internet against cyber threats.
Fires. Floods. Hurricanes. Heatwaves.
It can be easy to feel helpless in the face of planetary disruption, particularly with a global pandemic that is — understandably — distracting many from the generational challenge of climate change. But there is an enormous transformational opportunity at hand.
The need to build back after COVID-19 offers an opportunity to work toward cleaner and more resilient societies that can grow with fewer emissions, create broadly shared opportunities in a low-carbon economy, and heal the planet. Governments are spending massively to stimulate the economy, including forms of green stimulus, and many around the world are demanding that we don't just re-build, but build back better. This is a task that no single country can bear on its own; indeed, addressing climate change and sustainability challenges is the ultimate focal point for reimagining multilateralism in the 21st century. It requires that companies and governments take chances, invest and innovate, and share their learnings with the world. But it also requires global cooperation, including new coalitions of unconventional partners that each hold one part of a complex solution.
Scientists agree that to avoid the most destructive impacts of climate change and preserve the ecosystems upon which our societies depend, our economies must achieve net zero emissions by 2050, if not earlier. A growing chorus of voices across the public and private sector are making big net-zero commitments and inducing others to follow suit. But as the world enters a pivotal decade, commitments must be transformed into actions. Governments must come forward with bold new climate policy frameworks, companies must develop new tools, and the prolific volume of data being generated around the world must be harnessed to unlock new insights and strategies. Working together, recovery from the crisis can lead to a world that is greener, cleaner, and safer for generations to come.
What's the UN doing about it?
The UN has been the leading forum for multilateral efforts to address climate change via the 2015 Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement harnesses a bottom-up, non-binding approach, using the power of transparency and peer pressure to get countries to make various climate action commitments, and then to revisit these commitments and ratchet up ambition every five years. Even if all Paris commitments were fulfilled, the world would still be on track for around 3 degrees of warming, underscoring the importance of increasing ambition, learning from others, and lowering the cost of decarbonization through innovation and cooperation. The 2020 UN climate conference, to be hosted by the UK in Glasgow, was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and represents a critical juncture, as it will be the first official opportunity to take stock of current commitments and increase them where possible.
The UN is also a critical venue for dealing with other environmental priorities, including biodiversity — a critical foundation of today's modern pharmaceutical industry and a linchpin of the molecular diversity needed to fuel the development of new drugs and vaccines. World leaders were scheduled to meet in Kunming, China this October to negotiate the text of a new global treaty on biological diversity, but this too has been postponed to 2021 because of Covid-19. Nevertheless, this year's UNGA is critical in aligning key countries around a common strategy to better protect biodiversity in the 21st century.
How are others trying to help?
A diverse coalition of businesses, countries, cities, states, and other actors are stepping up ambition. There is a diverse mosaic of private sector efforts underway around the world to increase climate ambition, including the Transform to Net Zero coalition, a cross-sector initiative of leading businesses that are working to help companies of all sizes enter the race and reach net zero global emissions no later than 2050.
Because "net zero" doesn't mean that there will be no emissions, but instead that any residual emissions are balanced out by strategies to actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, it is imperative to begin advancing so-called "negative emissions" strategies and technologies today. Microsoft, for example, has pledged to become a carbon-negative company by 2030, and is currently accepting proposals for novel carbon removal innovations that it can finance through its $1 billion Climate Investment Fund that is making investments across a range of areas, including waste, carbon, and water.
And over September 21-27, the world's largest and most inclusive climate summit — Climate Week — will unite the world virtually to discuss how to make a just transition to a net zero future a core pillar of the world's recovery from COVID-19
What's needed next?
Even the most innovative leaders can't bend the emissions curve, nor protect the most vulnerable populations and systems from the ravages of climate change, alone. Public-private collaboration toward standardized carbon accounting and data sharing can help companies seize decarbonization opportunities, and can help governments better decide what and how to regulate. Better data transparency and sharing of both successes and challenges from first-mover companies and countries can help expose the largest levers of change and compel others to action, including through the Transform to Net Zero coalition.
Meanwhile, governments can work together to price carbon pollution, and to advance frameworks for cooperation across various carbon markets. Countries can discuss how various post-war institutions, such as the global trading system, can be revamped so that climate action is a source of cooperation, rather than competition and protectionism. And public-private cooperation can be introduced to enhance decision making around environmental management as the world adapts to a more volatile climate.
How can I get involved?
- Use a sustainability calculator to help your workplace better understand the carbon implications of its cloud usage.
- Check out the UN's "Race to Zero" campaign and see how you can become an official partner.
- Learn more about the math behind net zero commitments.
Digital inclusion: Activating skills for the next billion jobs
The COVID-19 crisis has put millions of people out of work and exacerbated economic inequality around the world. It has also squeezed years of digital transformation of the economy into just a few months — opening up new possibilities and challenges. Many workers will likely spend the next year or two in a "hybrid economy," with work continuing at least partially remotely. That means it will be more important for people to have the tech skills to succeed in a totally new workplace.
Connecting the more than 3 billion people who today lack reliable internet access to the communications tools and essential services they need to participate in the modern economy is an essential first step. Broadband is the electricity of the 21st century. Without universal access to broadband, the economic recovery from COVID-19 will be neither comprehensive nor inclusive. The pandemic underscores the risks of a digital divide — increasing the reliance of households, small businesses, and entire economies on internet access, while leaving those without it further and further behind.
In addition to eliminating or transforming current jobs, the pandemic may also generate many new ones. If industries maximize digital transformation, the 2020 lockdown could generate by 2025 as many as 150 million new tech jobs in software development, cyber security, data analysis, and other fields. To take advantage of this opportunity, governments, the private sector, and international organizations will need to invest in teaching workers new skills and reverse a two-decade decline in training on the job.
In order to make sure that the post-pandemic economic recovery is inclusive, we need to ensure that all people — especially those unreached or displaced by technology — have access to the skills needed for jobs and livelihoods as well as the connectivity to enable the development of the skills needed in this more digital economy.
What's the UN doing about it?
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - the UN's specialized agency for information and communication technologies - is tackling digital inclusion through its Connect 2030 Agenda. The Agenda is working across five goals:
- Growth - enabling and fostering access to the digital economy,
- Inclusiveness - bridging the digital divide and providing broadband access for all,
- Sustainability - managing emerging risks, challenges, and opportunities as society digitizes,
- Innovation - driving technological improvement, and
- Partnerships - broadening the coalitions working to expand access to digital opportunities.
The UN and ITU play a key role in collecting data — more than 100 indicators across 200 economies — to help better understand connectivity challenges and to benchmark progress toward closing the digital gap and expanding opportunities, including for women, youth, and minority communities.
On the ground, the UN also works extensively with governments and businesses to expand digital access and training in developing countries — from Colombia and Kenya to Thailand and beyond. But the UN can't do this alone, particularly when so much important data and insights are being generated by private tech platforms — from videoconferencing to networking to content creation — that underpin the 21st century economy.
How are others trying to help?
Industry, civil society, and government have to help prepare people with the skills they need for a 21st century economy. A key bottleneck is access, especially in rural or low-income areas. Technology firms including Microsoft have launched programs to connect people with fast, safe, and reliable internet, and to ensure that once they get online they can take advantage of educational resources to build up skills. Microsoft's Airband program to expand internet access in rural communities is operating in 20 countries, 25 US states, and serving 16 million people through programs and partnerships. And it in turn is helping to support Microsoft's commitment to help 25 million people worldwide acquire the digital skills needed in a post-pandemic economy.
What's needed next?
Everyone has a role to play, from government to industry to nonprofits. Employers can play a bigger role than they have in recent years to help employees develop these new skills. Governments can provide funding for citizens to access the relevant skills training or provide incentives to employers to do so. They can also make some of their data sets available for public use to enable job seekers and employers to identify in-demand skills and growth areas.
How can I get involved?
- Read the UN Secretary General's Roadmap for Digital Cooperation.
- Check out some case studies of what digital inclusion strategies can look like for creators, coaches, researchers, and refugees around the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered profound political, economic, and social shocks. For some countries, the worst of the crisis is already behind them, while others continue to grapple with severe health and economic challenges — and will still do so well into 2021. But as the world starts to rebuild, it is critical to focus not just on the speed but also on the quality of the recovery.
The recovery presents a rare opportunity for the world to confront climate change, create an inclusive internet, and safeguard critical cyber infrastructure. These goals are ambitious, especially in a "G-Zero" world in which the global order built after World War II — including the United Nations itself — is under strain and a time when many people feel that governments — in their towns, cities, and countries — are not up to the task. To achieve an inclusive, sustainable, and secure recovery, new alliances must be forged, involving governments, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals. The old solutions won't work.
And the old toolkit won't be enough either: 21st century challenges can't be solved with 20th century methods. That means new tools must be embraced, from digital education and training to carbon-negative technologies and more. Technology will play a key role. The United Nations, technology companies, and governments are collaborating on new ways to educate students, safeguard the internet, and measure changes in the environment. On the 75th anniversary of the UN, governments, companies, and NGOs will come together to discuss how to build a stronger, more resilient world.
What's the UN doing about it?
Through the World Health Organization, the UN is at the forefront of coordinating government responses to the pandemic. The agency has been a clearinghouse for the latest research into the virus and has provided important guidance on the best responses, such as safe practices for reopening schools. As focus turns towards recovery, the UN will continue to play a leading role in helping governments, industry, nonprofits, and international financial institutions work together to rebuild and strengthen resilience ahead of the next crisis. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the centerpiece of the UN's rebuilding agenda. For the UN, the agenda — which aims to eradicate poverty, promote prosperity, and protect the planet — is even more urgent given the pandemic-driven disruptions.
How are others trying to help?
Technology will play an important role in building a safer, more inclusive, and greener world. In the immediate term, leaders need to find ways to safely return to some degree of normalcy during the pandemic. More than one billion students across the world face school closures, and we must ensure that young people don't fall behind. To that end, the UN, companies, civil society, and academia have developed new tools to ensure students can keep up, including a program called Learning Passport which allows students to keep learning despite the disruptions caused by crisis and displacement.
The rapid shift to remote work will likely herald a broader move toward work-from-home or hybrid workspaces, which means increased demands on technology infrastructure. Decision-makers need access to reliable information about difficult-to-predict future threats, including climate change, pandemics, or displacements of people due to war or disasters. That's why some technology companies are partnering with the UN, national governments, and NGOs to develop tools to spot emerging threats. In addition, as the world begins to rebuild, governments need to be responsive to the needs of their people. The proliferation of cyber attacks and misinformation threatens the democratic political process, making it even more important for government and industry to collaborate to defend the vitality and health of democracies.
What's needed next?
Governments and businesses need to collaborate more to expand and strengthen 5G infrastructure to support remote work and school and to ensure that everyone has access to speedy, reliable internet. Moreover, given the economic changes caused by the pandemic, new investment must ensure that people have access to education and training to learn new skills to compete in the workforce. Companies also need to take the initiative to reduce carbon emissions, and a number of major companies have joined together to form the Transform to Net Zero coalition to do exactly that.
The annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the world's largest diplomatic event, normally entails leaders and representatives from the 193 UN member states descending upon New York for a full week of speeches, high-stakes meetings between governments, and street protests. UNGA has also had its share of surprising moments, like Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev (allegedly) banging his shoe on the desk, or Venezuela's Hugo Chávez suggesting that US President George W. Bush was the devil himself.
This year's UNGA will be very different because of COVID-19. Hotels in New York won't be full of diplomats, metal detectors, and secret service agents. The "contact sport" of diplomacy will go virtual, with great uncertainty over how improvisational breakthroughs often found on the sidelines of UNGA summits will translate to the digital world. And more individuals from around the world than ever before will be able to take part. In other words, UNGA will be very different, but hardly less important (or dramatic).
The COVID-19 pandemic makes this year's UNGA — the 75th — a once-in-a-generation opportunity for global leaders to unite around a single challenge, build the momentum necessary to tackle its effects head-on and chart a clear path forward for multilateralism... all while overcoming the obstacles of working virtually.
What will change? This year's UNGA will be mostly virtual, with world leaders delivering prerecorded statements and only one representative per UN member state attending in-person in the General Assembly Hall. All other events and meetings will take place online — requiring a 20th century institution, which still thinks in analog in many ways, to rapidly embrace 21st century technology. The pandemic will make proceedings more transparent for the general public, but the virtual setting may not be ideal for the most sensitive aspects of diplomacy that occur behind closed doors or the spontaneous meetings in the labyrinthine hallways of the UN. Many UN insiders worry that the virtual format may stand in the way of these unofficial meetings, which are often where the real diplomatic work gets done.
The overwhelming nature of the COVID-19 crisis may also divert attention from other top priorities such as biodiversity, and cash-strapped governments will be less likely to announce concrete financial commitments to meet the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the organization's roadmap for ending poverty and protecting the planet. Finally, there's a serious risk that the urgency of doing something quickly about the pandemic will make UN member states cut corners and compromise on sustainability, so in fact we'll end up "building back worse" than before.
What will stay the same? For the UN, 2020 was supposed to kick off its so-called "Decade of Action" to meet the 17 SDGs by 2030 — and it still is. Although that timeline has been complicated by the coronavirus, the UN has no immediate plans to push back the deadline, and now argues that the need to "build back better" after COVID-19 makes the objective of achieving all SDGs by the end of the decade even more urgent than it was at the beginning of the year.
This year was also expected to be all about the UN's own 75th birthday. A planned year-long celebration of the UN's accomplishments since its formation in 1945 has turned into an opportunity for the UN to draw lessons from its 75 years of experience dealing with global crises that can help the world recover from the pandemic. Finally, this year's high-level meetings will focus — as planned — on UN75, biodiversity, gender equality, and nuclear disarmament.
So, what's cooking for this year's UNGA, who are the key players, what's needed next, and how can you get involved?
What's the UN doing this year?
In 2020, UNGA will be anything but business-as-usual, starting with the schedule. The multiple high-level summits and events that are normally programmed for one week will take place throughout September and October to allow for most discussions and meetings to be virtual or in-person with social distancing. Here's the updated schedule of high-level meetings:
- 09/21 UN 75 anniversary commemoration. The UN will celebrate its 75th birthday under the theme The Future We Want, the UN We Need: Reaffirming our Collective Commitment to Multilateralism with a virtual address by Secretary-General António Guterres.
- 09/21-29 General Assembly debate. This is an opportunity for representatives from all UN member states to gather in the same room, and for each individual UN member state to raise any issue that's important to them. The process takes five days, and Brazil is the first to speak because it was the only country that volunteered to do so at the first debate in 1955. The US comes second, and representatives can talk about whatever they want... for a maximum of 15 minutes (the limit is rarely enforced).
- 09/30 Biodiversity Summit. As the degradation of biodiversity threatens global progress towards meeting the development goals, world leaders will adopt a framework to take urgent action on putting nature on a path to recovery by the end of the decade.
- 10/01 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women. A quarter century since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the Fourth World Conference on Women, UN member states will take stock of progress made and challenges ahead for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, everywhere.
- 10/02 Commemoration of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. This year's commemoration occurs in the shadow of a deterioration in arms control agreements between the US and Russia, the two states with the most nuclear weapons.
Who are the key players?
Governments are the most important players responding to global challenges, but they can't do so alone. Thus far, their response has also been insufficient, failing to rise to the level of international coordination seen in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and other pivotal global crises. This presents an opportunity to rethink effective multilateralism for the next 75 years, and it's why this year's UNGA is also bringing together the private sector, NGOs and others interested in a better future for all to together figure out how to meet the 2030 deadline to achieve the development goals in the "new normal" the pandemic has created. Microsoft, for instance, has long committed to Agenda 2030 and this year opened a representation office in New York to advance its partnerships with the UN and its agencies.
What's needed next, and how can I get involved?
This year's UNGA will aim to forge a global compact to prepare for a post-pandemic world that first and foremost focuses on global health in a scenario where COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on global health systems worldwide. But that consensus will also have to address rising inequality as a direct result of the coronavirus, its devastating impact on labor markets, and the political divisions the pandemic has exacerbated. Only a multilateral approach can get governments, the private sector and all other players on the same page so the recovery leaves no one behind.
To mark its 75th anniversary, the UN has been running a global survey on the future of global cooperation: Will COVID-19 bring the world closer together, or rather lead to greater mistrust? Contribute your opinion on what the UN should prioritize in the coming years by taking part in the poll. The survey is open until the end of 2020, and preliminary results will be announced at the commemoration ceremony.
A sneak peek at the findings shows that over 90 percent of respondents believe that global cooperation is vital to respond to today's challenges, including COVID-19. Those surveyed have identified health, access to basic services, global solidarity and making economies inclusive as the most pressing short-term priorities, and addressing climate change, corruption, poverty and conflict/violence as the most vital long-term goals.
In the meantime, stay tuned for special coverage on four key themes — climate and sustainability, crisis response and recovery, digital inclusion, and digital peace — by GZERO Media in partnership with Microsoft and Eurasia Group.
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