The role of the United Nations in promoting peace and security is front and center as geopolitical tensions run hot and the selection process for a new UN Secretary-General is well under way. This report explores the best avenues to make the United Nations more effective in the peace and security space both through UN80 reforms and a number of other means.

The contest to succeed António Guterres is underway. As candidates put forward their visions, the more pressing question is what kind of leader the moment demands.

UN’s budgeting process – the ‘who pays what’ that funds the world’s most important multilateral body – is fundamentally broken. We propose a dramatically different funding formula as a model to consider.

With the US stepping back and conflict on the rise, UN reform has shifted from a long-standing aspiration to an urgent necessity. The UK and EU are uniquely positioned to lead — but only if they bring the Global South with them.

With the US stepping back and conflict on the rise, UN reform has shifted from a long-standing aspiration to an urgent necessity. The UK and EU are uniquely positioned to lead — but only if they bring the Global South with them.

The creation of UN Women in 2010 offers a rare case study in successful UN reform — and a cautionary tale for the rushed, inward-looking process underway today. Transformation requires vision, diplomacy, and time.

There is broad agreement that UN reform is necessary — and deep disagreement about what it should look like. This pulse update maps the emerging fault lines among Member States as the UN80 process moves toward its most consequential decisions.

As the UN marks its 80th anniversary under acute budget pressure and political strain, Secretary-General Guterres has launched the most ambitious reform effort in a generation. This explainer breaks down what UN80 is, how it works, and what good reform would actually require.

The Summit of the Future showed that most member states still believe in multilateral cooperation — but also how deeply divided they remain on who gets to shape it. The north-south fault line, more than the east-west one, is now the defining tension in global governance.

Achieving the SDGs isn't just a technical challenge — it's a political one. The public discontent driving historic electoral shifts around the world is a demand for a different kind of leadership, and those committed to global goals can't afford to look away.

The sartorial wedding advice offers governments a framework to meet the moment and avoid an outcome that moves toward the slow decline of multilateralism.

Inspiring and humbling in equal measure: Minh-Thu Pham reflects on her years in the UN Secretariat, the institution's enduring relevance, and why meaningful reform ultimately depends on whether member states trust each other enough to act.

As world leaders gathered in New York, the gap between demand for global cooperation and its supply had rarely felt wider. Five key tests — from Security Council reform to SDG financing — would reveal whether the UN still has the capacity to deliver.

Like the Soviet culture of secrecy that caused Chernobyl, most crises have deeper roots than their immediate triggers suggest. This piece offers practical guidance on how to think — and act — in terms of systems rather than symptoms.