Global Responsibility and the Need for International Collaboration

We are convinced that the great global challenges of our time can only be mastered by pulling together and developing inclusive solutions. Therefore, we are all the more concerned to observe current developments in world politics, announcing the depreciation of human rights and the weakening of the multilateral system:
Purpose and assertiveness of multilateral institutions like the International Criminal Court, the Security Council or the NATO are being questioned while national interests are gaining the upper hand. These developments are challenging foundations and all agents of civil society.

The European Foundation Centre (EFC) Annual General Assembly and Conference provides an ideal context for discussing how foundations and NGOs can strengthen their impact in times of populism, conflict and violence, and what they can do to support and reform existing multilateral institutions.

Elizabeth Cousens focuses on how foundations can rethink their relationship to and stake in multilateral institutions, and why international cooperation beyond governments is so crucial right now. Moreover, she outlines how the United Nations (UN) are trying to adapt to this new era of multilateralism by redefining some of its core work.

Elinor Raikes presents the International Rescue Committee’s activities in the context of international humanitarian crises by introducing both foundation-based and UN-based project cooperation. While each of them comes with their own context-related challenges, both represent an example of successful multilateral action and can thus serve as orientation model for the philanthropic sector.