In the last of her three lectures as IPS’ 10th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, Dr Noeleen Heyzer discussed the future of multilateralism and its implications for Singapore.
Against her previous lecture, where she had described four interlocking disruptions which threaten the present multilateral rule-based order — the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, the digital revolution, and protracted armed conflicts — Dr Heyzer described three areas of urgent collective action, based on the “Our Common Agenda” report by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres: a renewed social contract, enhancing the governance of the global commons and global public goods, and bringing about a new multilateralism that is networked, inclusive and effective.
A Renewed Social Contract
With an erosion of trust by people in multilateral governance, political leaders and institutions, a point which Dr Heyzer had detailed in her second lecture, global and national systems need to take steps to deliver what people need to live a decent life, one of which is delivering public goods such as universal social protection, health coverage, education, skills, decent work and housing, as well as universal access to the Internet by 2030. This also means building the foundations for social sustainability and social security, especially the inclusion, protection and participation of people and communities who may be left behind, she said.
A new social contract also requires broad shifts in how prosperity and progress are defined and measured while focusing on human rights, emphasised Dr Heyzer. As highlighted in her first lecture, the human and environmental destruction of some business activities must be captured, while economic models need to be changed to value systems that sustain life and well-being. Care and informal labour done by women should also be validated, while investment needs to be made in quality paid care as part of essential public services and social protection arrangements.
Implementing this renewed social contract requires a whole-of-society approach, said Dr Heyzer, as she encouraged countries to also hold inclusive and meaningful national consultations for citizens to voice their suggestions to deal with the increasingly complex and interconnected problems of the future.
Governance of the Global Commons and Global Public Goods
To complement this renewed social contract, Dr Heyzer called for a stronger governance of the global commons, referring to natural resources such as oceans and the atmosphere, as well as global public goods, goods that concern the welfare of humanity and which cannot be adequately provided by any one state alone. Dr Heyzer focused on three such global public goods: the global economy, peace and security, and the digital commons.
First, the global economy needs to be re-envisioned in ways that rethink the interdependence between the economy, people and planet.
“Coordinated action by the business community to align their business practices with global goals, including the Paris Climate Agreement and the sustainable development goals (SDGs), is crucial”, she said. She observed how global businesses are increasingly being pressured to find drivers of growth that do not damage social harmony, cultural heritage or the environment, while environment, social and governance (ESG) factors have become benchmarks for socially responsible investing alongside financial factors.
Financial integrity should also be restored through addressing tax evasion and avoidance as well as illicit financial flows, while a minimum global corporate tax and solidarity tax could be imposed on private enterprises and the very wealthy, who have long benefitted from current economic arrangements and who should contribute back to national and global public goods.
Second, amid risks to global peace and security such as transnational criminal networks, new technologies for actors to disrupt global stability and an erosion of trust among major powers, Dr Heyzer called for the development of a peace continuum based on a firm understanding of underlying drivers and systems of influence that generate and sustain conflict. Greater agreement is also needed on more effective collective security responses and procedures to manage emerging risks.
Preventive work to address root causes of conflict should also be done, such as upholding human rights, ensuring adequate social spending and providing decent work and development assistance, while reducing strategic risks such as the effective regulation of conventional, technological and emerging weapons.
Support should also be strengthened for regional capacities, including security arrangements and joint peacebuilding cooperation, and there is a need for multi-stakeholder efforts to reduce violence worldwide, including against women and girls.
Third, the potential benefits of the Internet and associated digital technologies need to be balanced against potential harms, cautioned Dr Heyzer. Governance at the national and global levels has not kept pace with the inherently informal and decentralised nature of the Internet, which she contended are dominated by commercial interests. At the same time, there is real concern over the use of digital surveillance and manipulation to influence behaviour and control populations.
“Serious and urgent ethical, social and regulatory questions confront us, including the lack of accountability in cyberspace and the emergence of large technology companies as geopolitical actors,” said Dr Heyzer, who also pointed out gendered effects such as digital harassment targeted at women and girls, and the exclusion of women from designing digital technologies and algorithms.
A New Multilateralism: Networked, Inclusive and Effective
Multilateralism itself needs to evolve in light of the increasing diffusion of power, argued Dr Heyzer, who cited the more-than-tripling of the original number of UN member states, shifting global power from West to East, and the rise of influential non-state actors from multinational corporations and wealthy individuals to non-governmental organisations and ground-up movements empowered by social media.
Reiterating the importance of “solidarity as self-interest”, as highlighted in her first lecture, Dr Heyzer stressed the need for all to take collective responsibility to manage the global commons and global public goods, and address the challenges wrought by the great disruptions of the 21st century.
Moving forward, a new multilateralism would also need to be forged based on three key principles, said Dr Heyzer, first of which is to be networked — overcoming fragmentation and solving problems by drawing together existing institutional capacities, and hearing the voices of all relevant actors rather than being driven by mandates or institutions alone. Multilateralism should also become more inclusive, bringing together states from all regions and of all sizes to engage in collective action, with developing countries having a stronger voice in global decision-making. This necessitates the inclusion of a more diverse range of voices, such as sub-national authorities, the private sector, universities, civil society and grassroots movements.
Ultimately, multilateralism needs to be effective and produce results, stressed Dr Heyzer. It needs to be nimble and dynamic, and able to respond to volatile situations and unprecedented emergencies, she said, sharing the UN Secretary-General’s proposal to establish an Emergency Platform to respond to complex global crises of a certain scale and magnitude by bringing together leaders from member states, the UN system, key country groupings, international financial institutions, regional bodies, civil society, the private sector, subject-specific industries and other experts.
A major priority for this new networked-inclusive-effective multilateralism is to engage the private sector to commit to business models that support inclusion, empowerment, human rights and sustainable development, and investments that consider ESG factors, said Dr Heyzer. She raised the example of the TRANSFORM initiative, a social enterprise support platform by Unilever and the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which has partnered with companies such as Microsoft, Mastercard and LinkedIn to support 56 community enterprise projects including a mobile e-commerce platform in Rwanda, a women and maternal health information service in Nigeria, and affordable water and sanitation providers in Bangladesh and India. One project in India, Dharma Life, provided mentoring and support to over 16,000 rural women to become village-level entrepreneurs to facilitate access to vital information, goods and services to vulnerable communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Dr Heyzer reiterated that solutions can only be achieved if alliances are based on values, visions and goals that are shared — be it the managing of global public risks, long-term governance of the global commons or the delivery of global public goods.
Securing Singapore’s Future: An Epicentre of Multilateralism?
Moving from the global to local, Dr Heyzer shared three ways in which Singapore could become what she termed an “epicentre of multilateralism”. First, having played an important role in global health security during the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore can now adopt a sustainable development paradigm and develop itself into a multilateral hub for global public health. It could showcase how it understands social and environmental determinants of health to improve the conditions and quality of people’s daily lives, or how it focuses on prevention and improving health equity rather than treatment and average population health.
Second, Singapore could become a digital hub for cybersecurity in embracing new cybersecurity norms and best practices in the world. This is especially as the Asia-Pacific is predicted to become the leading region in terms of 5G technology adoption, yet remains uneven in terms of cybersecurity regulations, guidelines and practices. Singapore is well-poised to advise in these respects, and to develop homegrown cybersecurity talent skilled in technological and para-technological aspects, particularly women, who constitute less than 10 per cent of the cybersecurity workforce in the Asia Pacific. This is a problem which has resulted in a lack of gender perspectives informing cybersecurity despite the gendered nature of cybercrime, added Dr Heyzer. To combat the gender gap in cybersecurity, she expressed that policymakers could conduct a gender analysis on cybersecurity norms as well as draw on existing frameworks, such as the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, to develop and strengthen cybersecurity laws that eliminate online harassment and respond appropriately to the cybersecurity needs of women and girls.
Third, as a leading wealth management hub in the region, Singapore can also play a strong role in wealth planning solutions that support sustainable development in Asia. It is now positioning itself as a carbon services hub to complement Asia’s decarbonisation efforts, and with good potential in Southeast Asia to generate carbon credits, Singapore can help play a role in the financing of projects that reduce or remove emissions through these credits. It can also become the leading centre for green finance and markets, promoting sustainability bonds and loans, and collaborating with international partners to develop a common green taxonomy.
Closing her lecture, Dr Heyzer stressed that in the multilateral space, Singapore must not only be part of the global community but also lead with sincerity and solidarity.
“Singapore can become a locally-rooted nation with strong principles aligned with multilateral governance, a secure national core, and increasingly comfortable with being a global citizen with the rights and responsibilities of what that entails. We could move from being identified as a little red dot to a beacon of smart and compassionate power, regionally and globally where our citizens can be counted on to revitalise multilateral governance. That is a future worth securing,” said Dr Heyzer.
Question-and-Answer Session
During the question-and-answer session moderated by Professor Chan Heng Chee, Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and IPS’ 7th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, Dr Heyzer fielded questions on how her vision of a new multilateralism would look like in practice, against a deeply divided world where superpower nations continue to hold considerable influence, and where US-China tensions remain centre stage in global discourse.
Dr Heyzer said that superpowers have to realise that in order to arrive at a stable world order, they must find areas of common ground and cooperation, such as the climate agenda, even if they continue to disagree and compete in other areas. Dr Heyzer also highlighted that beyond the superpowers, there are also other spaces and coalitions where other member states come together, such as the Global Governance Group (3G) which she shared more about in her second lecture.
Concerning the relevance of the UN today, Prof Chan asked Dr Heyzer if she felt the UN were more suited to deal with issues of development and humanitarian crises rather than trying to advance global peace and security, citing Syria as an example where it appears to be “more of a matter for big players”. In response, Dr Heyzer made the point that the UN’s withdrawal from such issues would likely exacerbate current matters, and that the UN has historically played important roles in the building of infrastructure for peace and the prevention of conflicts.
On what Singapore leaders and young people could do to help make Singapore an epicentre of multilateralism, Dr Heyzer believed that there can be greater partnerships and conversations for sectors to work together to create solutions for the future. She also expressed how proud she was that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Singaporeans found innovative ways to come together and care for one another, and how she hoped that these innovations would become standard practice beyond Singapore’s borders. She stressed her hope that Singapore, while it innovates internally, will also innovate externally in the region and become a powerhouse that looks beyond its “little red dot” status.
Click here to watch the video of lecture III.