In my writing in the last few years, I’ve been preoccupied with the idea of global governance—that is, wondering how effective the mammoth institution of the United Nations is at promoting peace, reducing worldwide poverty, providing better healthcare and corralling nations to tamp down climate change. But it is far from working alone on these challenges. The so-called “plurilateral summit institutions” formed by the richest nations coming together on these issues, namely, the “Group of Seven” (or the G7) and the “Group of Twenty” (or G20), and then the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, now with a few more members). Add to that group the “multilateral organizations” like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the International Criminal Court and many other such institutions. And finally, factor in global civil society which includes the business community and tens of thousands of nongovernmental organizations working on development, human rights, peace and justice.
All of this is rightly labeled “global governance,” especially since these groups started working together for the first time in a big way at the 1992 UN Rio de Janeiro conference, or the Earth Summit. Attended by 108 heads of state and government leaders, this was the first world gathering when nations came to a broad consensus that climate change was happening, that it was caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, and that to continue on this path would at some point threaten the future of humanity on this planet. The outcome of that summit was the establishment of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which at the time was signed by 154 states. That covenant stipulated the convening of a yearly global gathering to assess the progress (or not) made on tackling climate change. This is the Conference of the Parties, or COP (signatories to UNFCCC). This year is the 31st COP, and it meets in Antalya, Turkey. Today there are 198 parties or nations signed up for this task.
What are the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals?
The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio was also historic, in that it highlighted the concept of “sustainable development” on the global stage. People had been talking about that idea since at least the 1970s, but now scientists were describing in real time how the level of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere was quickly rising and how this “greenhouse effect” was tangibly heating up its climate. It was beginning to melt the ice caps on both poles and would soon lead to dangerous sea level rise. Warmer oceans, in turn, would provoke more intense hurricanes and flooding in some regions and bring catastrophic droughts and wildfires to others. Of course, three decades later, we’re all witnessing this first hand, knowing that much worse is on the way if we do not do our own part in protecting the planet and demanding from our politicians some drastic changes (see my review of Ahmed Afzaal’s Teaching at Twilight).
Sustainable development, then, involves making changes at all levels: eradicating extreme poverty nationally and internationally; growing our economies in a way that is just and fair, using clean energy rather than burning fossil fuels, and so much more. This is what came out of the largest gathering of world leaders at the UN headquarters in New York City in 2000—the Millennium Summit, which led to a declaration launching eight goals nations committed to reach between 2000 and 2015. These were the Millennial Development Goals (MDGs). Conservative estimates state that this global effort resulted in the saving of at least 21 million lives.
Then in 2015, and spearheaded in particular by Pope Francis and other faith leaders, this global campaign led to even more ambitious and comprehensive goals for the next 15 years—the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, summarized the SDGs in five broader objectives:
1. Reduce extreme poverty
2. Fix inequality: wide gaps between rich and poor must be drastically narrowed.
3. Ensure mobility: what are your chances of advancement if you were born into a lower class?
4. Eliminate discrimination: “Are some individuals such as women, racial minorities, religious minorities, or indigenous populations disadvantaged by their identity within a group?”
5. Deliver well-being for the present and future generations, fostering ‘social trust, mutual support, and moral values.” (from his book, The Age of Sustainable Development, 2015, 11).
Under the first SDG (“No Poverty”), we read that 80 percent of those suffering from extreme poverty live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. This is where we must concentrate our efforts, because these are the most vulnerable populations in light of new threats like “climate change, conflict and food insecurity.” Then under SDG 10 (“Reducing Inequalities”), we read about some ways to reduce income inequality that seem fairly obvious and uncontroversial: “improving the regulation and monitoring of financial markets and institutions, encouraging development assistance and foreign direct investment to regions where the need is greatest.” But the next sentence is a lot more controversial, and especially nowadays: “Facilitating the safe migration and mobility of people is also key to bridging the widening divide.”
That last point is nicely articulated by Amy Pope, the current Director General of the United Nations agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In a 2025 essay published in Foreign Affairs, she begins with two observations. The first is that “irregular immigration” (or “entering a country without prior authorization”) is on the rise: in 2023, for instance, about 2.5 million people attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexican border. In Europe, “the number of unauthorized border crossings climbed to 380,000 in 2023, the highest since 2016.” The second observation is that we are now witnessing a global political backlash against immigration. Political parties that call for stopping the flow of immigration, including for those who qualify for asylum according to international law have much more influence than they used to. Some even advocate for massive deportations of newly arrived immigrants.
Pope’s solution is to set up a new global migration system that takes into account the labor shortages in high-income nations, particularly for entry-level jobs in agriculture and healthcare:
“Instead of short-term hard-line responses, the better and ultimately more successful route is to build a new system that can replace the old one and effectively address today’s challenges. That new system must start from the premise that migration is a permanent feature of human civilization—in fact, border management and standardized passports are relatively new phenomena—and that there is a way to manage the movement of people in a manner that is orderly, dignified, and advantageous to all parties. That would mean both supporting development in migrants’ countries of origin and making legal immigration channels accessible and efficient.”
The U.S. system relies on the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act which capped the H-2B nonagricultural visas to 68,000 a year. This number today is far below the number of low-skilled jobs needed in several American industries, and in the agricultural sector, even though those numbers are not capped, the bureaucratic red tape is such that the numbers of workers admitted is also woefully inadequate. The same is true in Europe, where countries like the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy are experiencing “labor shortages in service sectors such as construction, hospitality, and health care without clear pathways to meet those needs.”
Then there are those who qualify as “refugees”— people who, according to the 1951 Refugee Convention (signed by 149 nations), are fleeing persecution because of “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” This convention also stipulates that these refugees “have a right to jobs, housing, education, travel documents, and social protections.” But there are two problems here. The first is that many nations have reneged on their obligation to admit refugees (in the U.S., for instance, President Trump recently issued an executive order to ban the admission of any and all refugees). The second issue is that many people who “are forced to relocate do not actually qualify as refugees.” As Pope notes,
“In 2023, climate-related disasters displaced a record 26.4 million people, more than those displaced by conflict. Many affected countries, such as those across the Sahel and the eastern Horn of Africa, are already economically and politically fragile, and there is little government support for families who must choose between moving and starving.”
Climate change will only make this trend grow exponentially. Hence, the need to create a new system of legal immigration on a global scale and within individual nations, and especially the high-income ones. As a solution to critical labor shortages and to the crisis of plummeting birthrates, it certainly behooves wealthier nations to do so. Pope remarks that labor shortages in the thirty highest income nations costed them “an estimated $1.3 trillion in lost GDP in 2023 alone.” This explains in part why so many people cross borders illegally. For years in the U.S. for instance, this was not seen as much of a political issue. After all, about five percent of the workforce is undocumented. But in the current political climate, people are sharply divided about this.
On paper, this looks so reasonable, so fair and just. In practice, with anti-immigration sentiment dominating the politics of countries that could afford to accommodate many more refugees and immigrants, advocating for a reform of global migration policies seems like a fool’s errand. Just look at Spain, by far the European nation most eager to welcome immigrants these days, now in the throes of a crisis as over 60,000 people from Morocco broke through the borders of the Spanish enclave of Ceuta since yesterday. Close to 30 have drowned trying to get in (watch this BBC clip).
Yet there is a lot we can do to help move the needle toward a more humane and just solution to this growing crisis of our day. In my next installment, I will point to people of faith who are speaking out on behalf of immigrants and rolling up their sleeves to help them.