ESCR-Net and Partners Reaffirm Commitment to Denouncing Corporate Capture, Reflect on Summit of the Future

Activists and campaigners raised growing concerns last month over corporate capture of global governance, during the Social Movements and Organizations’ Encounter in New York. The event was organized by social movements in parallel with the UN Summit of the Future, September 21-23. One critical question resonated throughout the four-day encounter: people or profit?

The goal of the event was to put forward transformative solutions to the world’s major problems and challenge the UN Secretary-General’s “UN 2.0” which assigns a bigger role to transnational corporations, multistakeholderism, and “networked governance.”

“We confer a sort-of ‘halo’ on transnational corporations, particularly digital corporations, to tackle our foundational challenges, in core areas like universalizing education, no matter what it means for inclusion or inequality,” said Anita Gurumurthy, founding member and Executive Director of IT for Change. “By handing over social infrastructures to these entities, we hand over the control we have as people over the public domain. The question is not about capability, but about accountability and about what we value. People or profit?

Members Habitat International Coalition (HIC), People’s Health Movement (PHM), FIAN International, and Corporate Accountability, among others part of the Peoples Working Group on Multistakeholderism and the Corporate Accountability Working Group, were active in preparations for the Summit of the Future. They contributed to calls for inputs to the Pact for the Future, an inter-governmentally negotiated, action-oriented document with the “potential to promote a multilateral system that reflects the realities of today and that delivers for everyone, everywhere,” according to the UN. Members also participated in consultations, and joined in the Civil Society Conference held in May 2024 in Nairobi, which was set out to mobilize contributions of non-State actors to the Pact.

Grace Chikumo-Mtonga, president of HIC, attended the Summit of the Future Action Days at the United Nations, from September 21 to 22. Reflecting on the sessions she took part in, Chikumo- Mtonga stressed the importance of inclusivity, bringing local authorities and people together, and trying to localize the issues of development that are responsive to the needs of the people. She also expressed her overall views on the Summit.

“While the Summit brought together different players from the economic and social development sectors, one thing that was evident was that it did not provide a clear roadmap in terms of how the world is to address global challenges,” said Chikumo-Mtonga. “There was no clarity in terms of addressing issues like climate change, reaching ceasefires for the ongoing wars in the world, and global leaders committing to peace and security. In a nutshell, the Summit failed to address the expectations of many participants, especially those coming from civil society movements.”

Multistakeholder governance, with corporations and their hybrid associations at the core, is not the solution to current global crises, nor for the “modernization” and reform of the UN. Rather, it is an extremely worrying sign of the increasing corporate capture of the UN multilateral system, and subversion of the very basis of multilateralism rooted in decision-making among states. The proliferation of multistakeholder mechanisms in global governance has made it neither more inclusive nor more efficient. Instead, it has been inclusive mainly of corporations and efficient only for realizing their interests.

Corporate monopolization over decisions that affect everyday livelihoods must be met with accountability and justice. As a priority, members of ESCR-Net have reiterated the urgent need to regulate corporate actors, nationally, regionally and internationally, in order to stop corporate capture.

Note to editors:

• The Social Movements and Organizations’ Encounter was organized by Friends of the Earth International (FOEI), the Transnational Institute (TNI), Focus on the Global South, IT for Change, the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), FIAN International, ESCR-Net, Corporate Accountability, and People’s Health Movement (PHM).
• The encounter was preceded on September 16 by a press conference on “Who gets to define the future?: The UN’s Summit of the Future as a mechanism for corporate capture,” moderated by ESCR-Net. Speakers Martín Drago from FOEI, Gonzalo Berrón from TNI, and Anita Gurumurthy, from IT for Change provided a critical assessment of the role played by the UN and its multilateral system in a world threatened by unprecedented crises.
• See also Open Letter: Beware the Corporate Multistakeholder Strategy in Civil Society Clothing!, Peoples´ Working Group on Multistakeholderism, 26 March 2024