Tharman appointed to high-level UN advisory board on multilateralism

Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has been appointed to a new high-level United Nations advisory board on effective multilateralism.

The 12-member board - comprising global leaders, officials and experts - is tasked with making concrete suggestions for more effective multilateral arrangements across a range of issues.

Its non-binding recommendations are intended to inform deliberations by UN member states at a proposed "Summit of the Future" event to be held next year.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the formation of the board in a statement to the media on Friday.

"The board will be supported in its work by the Centre for Policy Research of the United Nations University in close coordination with the Executive Office of the Secretary-General," said the statement.

Last September, Mr Guterres called for stronger governance of key issues in his report, Our Common Agenda, which laid out his vision on the future of global cooperation and on reinvigorating inclusive and effective multilateralism.

The report proposed the Summit of the Future event to advance ideas for governance arrangements in areas considered global public goods or global commons.

These areas include climate change and sustainable development beyond 2030, the international financial architecture, peace, outer space, the digital space, major risks and the interests of future generations.

The new advisory board will be asked to build on the ideas set out in the report.

"I will ask the advisory board to identify global public goods and potentially other areas of common interest where governance improvements are most needed and propose options for how this could be achieved," Mr Guterres said in the report.

"This would need to take into account existing institutional and legal arrangements, gaps and emerging priorities or levels of urgency, and the need for equity and fairness in global decision-making."

Ms Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was Liberia's president from 2006 to 2018, and Mr Stefan Lofven, Sweden's prime minister from 2014 to 2021, will co-chair the board.

Other members include former government officials, economists, academics and researchers hailing from China, Nepal, India, Rwanda, Egypt, Kenya, the United States, Brazil and Slovenia.

Mr Tharman co-chairs the Group of 20 (G-20) High Level Independent Panel on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response, the advisory board for the UN Human Development Report, and the Global Education Forum.

He is also chairman of the Group of Thirty, an independent body of global economic and financial leaders.

He had earlier chaired the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the G-20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance.