Rebuilding trust is key to defending multilateralism.

The challenge is less about the principles guiding cooperation than about how they are administered and implemented. Administrative complexity, fragmented mandates, and limited visibility of results can erode confidence even where cooperation works, leaving space for narratives portraying it as unnecessary, ineffective or harmful.


Rebuilding trust is therefore essential not only to defend cooperation but to enable meaningful reform. Without public confidence in the value of international standards, reform risks being driven by budget cuts rather than tangible improvement. Sustainable reform requires renewed belief in these principles so governments invest in strengthening how standards are implemented, making them more effective, transparent and responsive.


International cooperation must also be reclaimed for what its founders intended: a space where actors confront differences around a table rather than on the battlefield. To remain relevant in polarized societies, international cooperation must be a credible space where opposing actors engage in genuine dialogue – to debate constructively and peacefully, implement agreements, and forge new ones. This is not idealism. In an interconnected world, it is the only peaceful path and firmly in the national interest of all.


Large-scale public engagement has worked before, albeit briefly. In 2020, the UN75 initiative mobilized UN country information centres and civil society networks to engage more than 1.5 million people worldwide in dialogue on shared priorities and the UN’s future, demonstrating public appetite and institutional capacity to deliver at scale. The effort was not sustained, yet the infrastructure still exists while being under-resourced, disconnected and underutilized.


Strategic engagement also delivers results. In the United States, the Better World Campaign recently helped secure congressional funding for the US’s UN dues by demonstrating the national benefits of strong UN engagement. Actors, such as the Center for Countering Digital Hate, also address parts of the disinformation ecosystem. Importantly, many companies and innovators remain committed to responsible technology, ethical standards and public-interest partnerships – essential allies for rebuilding trust through evidence-based engagement. What is missing is coordinated connective tissue linking these efforts internationally.


Hubs of international cooperation like Geneva, New York and Vienna have the expertise, credibility and worldwide networks to help close this gap – by listening more closely to public concerns, engaging honestly about failures and where reform is needed, and making visible what cooperation achieves and what is at stake if it unravels. Anchored in Geneva, Stronger Together brings together actors across sectors and regions to pool evidence and translate it into meaningful public engagement and advocacy.


At a moment when fear, division and conflict are being amplified worldwide, the case for cooperation must be made clearly and confidently. It must show not only that international cooperation works and is needed today, but that it remains essential to peace, rights, prosperity, and our shared future.


Now is the moment for international organizations, civil society, business, scientists, academics, creators, foundations and responsible technology to act together to rebuild trust through evidence, dialogue and shared understanding. Because in an interconnected world, we are stronger together.