Will states support corporate capture of the future?

The United Nations Summit of the Future risks missing opportunities to give value to public goods.

In 2021, the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, published a report called Our Common Agenda. The document, prepared after listening to a myriad of stakeholders, was designed to accelerate implementation of UN agreements, including the Sustainable Development Goals set for realisation by 2030.

The report acknowledged a frayed social contract, caused by a growing disconnect between the public and the institutions that serve it, underlain by a crisis of trust. It proposed improvement of citizens’ experiences with public institutions and basic services, as a concrete means to build trust in the future. The text proposed the organisation of a Summit of the Future to forge a new global consensus on what that should look like and what could be done today to secure it.

The summit will take place at the UN headquarters in September but it has drifted far from Guterres’ intent. The draft of a Pact for the Future (among other documents), to be agreed in New York, and the United Nations Civil Society Conference in Nairobi last month have done little to foreground the assurance and sustainability of public goods.

‘ImPACT coalitions’

The design of the process leading to the summit has insistently worked under the ‘third UN’ framework. This reference to the non-state actors interacting with the organisation’s intergovernmental machinery (the ‘first UN’) and its civil servants (the ‘second’) equates for-profit corporations and non-profit organisations under the rubric of ‘imPACT coalitions’. In a world where public institutions and basic services intended to fulfil human rights and achieve sustainable development are at constant risk of commercialisation or reduction to mere ‘profitable industries’, providing the same space to these very different actors is deeply problematic. 

First, it overlooks the power differential between large multinationals and national or local non-governmental organisations and reduces the space for the participation of those organisations that are closer to the interests and demands of citizens, thus enhancing the scope for corporate capture. If the aim was to improve citizens’ experiences of public institutions and services, shouldn’t organisations established to work alongside them and advocate for their interests be offered the broader avenue for participation?

Secondly, this is problematic in terms of accountability. Generally, corporations have very limited accountability for the impacts of their actions on human rights. Although states have to protect people from human-rights abuses committed by third parties, the legal and political mechanisms available to them to act against a company—especially if it is a powerful transnational—as against a local NGO are diametrically different. When large corporations violate or threaten people’s rights, effective remedies to end those abuses are scarce and can take decades to secure.

Finally, giving a prominent role to corporations prevents poverty, inequality and human rights from being fully addressed. These institutions are focused on their private interest to earn profits, not the public interest. In contrast, the main objective of public services is to improve the quality of life of populations. Public services are critical to building fairer, more inclusive and more resilient societies, which are equipped to face crises such as climate emergencies, the cost-of-living crisis and pandemics. Strengthening, improving and developing universal public services should thus be at the core of states’ operations.

A public future

Improving citizens’ experiences with public institutions and basic services means building a future that is public, in the outcomes and the means to achieve them. But to realise a public future, which can reduce historically high inequalities in the world, requires several immediate reforms to the drafting process for the Pact for the Future.

At the very minimum, the pact should:

• reaffirm states’ commitments to all human rights, including economic, social, cultural and environmental rights;
• call for an increased investment in public services, with a particular focus on reaching all women and girls and empowering the most disadvantaged;
• reiterate states’ responsibility to ensure universal access to public education, universal health coverage, care and energy services, among other basic public services;
• strengthen the duty to create a more enabling environment for states to mobilise domestic resources, including by taxing the richest persons and corporations, and
• amplify the voices of people and communities around the world by enhancing the streams of public participation, including by promoting and supporting civil-society organisations.

Facing a turning point to decide the future of people and planet, the question is: will states endorse the corporate capture of the future or will they choose to respond to citizens’ demands with quality public services?

On this International Public Service Day, that question hangs in the air.