Nudhara Yusuf and Daniel Perell of the Coalition for the United Nations We Need—also with the Stimson Center's Global Governance Innovation Network, and the Baha’i International Community—look ahead to the UN’s 2024 Summit of the Future through a series of intimate and penetrating discussions with many of the international figures contributing to the Summit’s shaping.
Join them as they talk with people from all regions of the world, and with diverse international service experience, as they consult on how the Summit of the Future can realize its promise.
Looking back to look ahead: Dan and Nudhara go to Sweden, Kenya, and UN80
Recorded in part in Stockholm, Sweden during the Global Challenges Foundation Partner Days, this episode of UN Necessary takes the podcast on the road for a candid, wide-ranging conversation about what is—and isn’t—necessary for the United Nations at a pivotal moment for global governance and multilateral reform. Hosts Nudhara Yusuf and Daniel Perell draw on rapid-fire conversations with diplomats, policy experts, and civil society leaders to reflect on debates shaping the UN’s future. Though...
30 Apr 2025TRANSCRIPT
Ambassador Brian Wallace on Future Generations and the importance of multilateralism and the UN
In this episode of UN Necessary, recorded in New York, hosts Nudhara Yusuf and Daniel Perell speak with Ambassador Brian Wallace, Jamaica’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former co-facilitator of the UN Declaration on Future Generations. As the world grapples with escalating global challenges—from climate change and inequality to geopolitical instability— Ambassador Wallace offers a compelling perspective on the importance of multilateralism, the urgency of long-term think...
7 Apr 2025TRANSCRIPT
The UN’s Next Chapter with Stephen Heintz and Richard Ponzio
In this episode of UN Necessary, recorded on 22 January 2025 in New York, hosts Nudhara Yusuf and Daniel Perell sit down with Stephen Heintz, President and CEO of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Dr. Richard Ponzio, Director of the Global Governance, Justice, and Security Program where he also co-directs the Global Governance Innovation Network. As the world grapples with rising geopolitical tensions, democratic backsliding, and the challenge of global governance reform, our guests reflect...
27 Sept 2024
A legacy of change: Carlos Alvarado Quesada on breaking inertia for a sustainable future
From the sidelines of the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, UAE, in November 2023, UN Necessary’s Daniel Perell spoke with former president of Costa Rica Carlos Andrés Alvarado Quesada on his administration’s efforts to push against societal inertia to lead Costa Rica on the path to decarbonization. Drawing inspiration from his grandparents’ generation, which abolished Costa Rica’s military, and the responsibility he feels to his family and future generations, Alvarado shares the motivations...
19 Sept 2024
Dialogue is more than talking points: Felipe Paullier on enabling youth to reform the United Nations
In the last UN Necessary episode ahead of the Summit of the Future, Nudhara Yusuf and Daniel Perell speak with Uruguayan doctor and activist Felipe Paullier, the UN’s first Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs, to explore his vision for empowering young voices in multilateral spaces. Felipe shares his personal motivations and the complexities of leading a new office—while trying to bridge the gap between institutional governance and the world’s youth. His reflections touch on the nee...
26 Aug 2024
Something’s going to give: Natalie Samarasinghe on reforming the United Nations in a world on the brink
In this episode of UN Necessary, recorded in March and July, hosts Nudhara Yusuf and Daniel Perell dive into the complexities of global governance and United Nations reform with Natalie Samarasinghe, outgoing global director of advocacy at the Open Society Foundations, who was previously executive director of the UN Association-UK and speechwriter to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres.Recorded amidst the bustling atmosphere of the March 2024 Global Women Leaders Voices Dialogue, in Mad...
23 May 2024
The UN reforms we need: David Passarelli on hope, more science and less interference
David Passarelli, from the United Nations University Center for Policy Research, helped to prepare a key report to Secretary-General António Guterres ahead of the Summit of the Future. In the latest episode of UN Necessary, David shares insights from his work with the High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, emphasizing the need for reform in global finance, digital governance, and environmental policy, and the need to let science not politics drive policy. And the experiences that have given him hope.
UN Necessary’s hosts, Nudhara Yusuf and Daniel Perell, also share reflections on the United Nations Civil Society Conference, which was held between May 9-10 in Nairobi, Kenya, and how it might pave the way for civil society to play a meaningful September 2024 Summit of the Future. This episode was recorded before the conference—tune in next time for reflections on how it went.
8 Apr 2024
The world at a crossroads: Maria João Rodrigues on how multilateralism can include everyone
Before he was Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres was prime minister of Portugal; and before she was President of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, Maria João Rodrigues was Minister for Employment and Education Training in Mr. Guterres’s government, as well as an advisor, and later serving as a Member of European Parliament. In the latest episode of UN Necessary, Ms. Rodrigues regales Nudhara and Dan with tales of pushing former US president Bill Clinton to rethink global governance as just one example of her experiences working for an inclusive multilateral cooperation.
The Summit of the Future process—and efforts at UN reform—can learn from the experience of the European Union, Ms. Rodrigues says. Governments need to coordinate across peace and security, the global climate crisis, social issues, technology and finance, mobilizing all stakeholders, if the world is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Right now the multilateral system is too weak to deal and could splinter—unless it becomes more fair.
7 Feb 2024
Do it for the plot: Ishaan Shah on Youth Activism, Anti-Slavery and the UN System
Ishaan Shah, a 20-something student at King’s College, University of London, became seized with the problem of modern slavery while still a teenager. Now a youth activist whose work cuts across the United Nations system, he joins Nudhara Yusuf and Daniel Perell to talk about the need for young voices to be included in international forums not just for appearances but for “the plot”; in other words, to make a difference.
The Summit of the Future is an opportunity to reinvigorate multilateralism and the United Nations, Ishaan says, so long as UN member states can find ways to act on the decisions made by humanity in its grandest halls. UN Necessary’s second episode is part of a series of discussions with key diplomatic and civil society figures ahead of the 2024 Summit of the Future.
21 Dec 2023
Multilateralism 2.0: Maria Fernanda Espinosa on the responsibility to include
Nudhara and Dan are joined by Maria Fernanda Espinosa, president of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly and Executive Director of GWL Voices (https://gwlvoices.com/), about the international community’s responsibility to include diverse voices at the upcoming 2024 Summit of the Future (https://www.un.org/en/common-agenda/summit-of-the-future). These are not limited to experts, activists or officials from the global south, as well as the north.
In the UN Necessary podcast’s launch episode, we hear how Ms. Fernanda Espinosa, a woman who was previously Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs, ambassador to the UN, and many other roles, continues to draw on lessons learned from indigenous communities in rural Ecuador.
Inside a recent episode
Ambassador Brian Wallace on Future Generations and the importance of multilateralism and the UN
Published 30 Apr 2025 · Transcript excerpt
[…] Also on the future generations part of it is looking much longer term, looking beyond where we are now and seeing what the possibilities are. If we work through the challenges that we have, what we could have at the end of the day, that keeps me motivated. I see no scenario where things are interminably bad. We have a situation in the world right now where we're in the midst of some people are saying tectonic shifts. We just have to figure out how we're going to get through this. There have been bigger challenges than this that the world has faced and we'll get through it. We have to be smart about it, we have to be innovative about it, we have to look for the ways to do things differently. […]
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