In facing up to the challenges of their times, the world leaders of 60 years ago created new multilateral institutions – the United Nations, IMF, and the World Bank – in the conviction that international cooperation was the best way to solve the challenges of the post- war world.
Today we too face significant challenges: ours is the era of global change unprecedented in its speed, scope and scale. As the world becomes more interdependent we are increasingly exposed to sharp and growing social and economic inequalities. Poverty, environmental degradation, and lagging development exacerbate vulnerability and instability to the detriment of us all. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals and wider internationally agreed development goals is central to our global economic stability and prosperity.

The United Nations played a crucial role in articulating the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Now it needs to take action to achieve these and the other development goals, and support governments implement their national plans. However, without ambitious and farreaching reforms the United Nations will be unable to deliver on its promises and maintain its legitimate position at the heart of the multilateral system. Despite its unique legitimacy, including the universality of its membership, the UN’s status as a central actor in the multilateral system is undermined by lack of focus on results, thereby failing, more than anyone else, the poorest and most vulnerable.

The 2005 World Summit in New York gave the need for UN reform new impetus. At the initiative of the Secretary-General, this High-level Panel has worked for over six months to consider how the UN system can most effectively respond to the global development,
environmental and humanitarian challenges of the 21st century.