Strengthening multilateralism remains a critical challenge as global political landscapes shift.

The multilateral system currently faces its most sustained legitimacy crisis in decades. Institutions underpinning international cooperation are being systematically undermined, as shared challenges and crises intensify. What once appeared as fringe hostility has moved into the political mainstream, exploiting fears about identity, insecurity and economic precarity through coordinated disinformation and misleading narratives. It is working.


Across regions, political extremism is on the rise and democracy is on the backfoot. The narratives around global cooperation are reframed as weakness, solidarity as naivety or conspiracy, and collective international action as ideological capture rather than public good, providing political cover for deep cuts to the United Nations and other international organizations.


Migration often lies at the centre of today’s disinformation-driven political narratives. Migrants become proxies for fears about loss of control, cultural change and sovereignty, even in countries shaped by migration now facing ageing populations, declining fertility and labour shortages. These distortions carry policy consequences. During negotiations on the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (a non-binding framework reaffirming state sovereignty), coordinated disinformation cast the compact as imposed global governance, fuelling backlash and prompting some governments to withdraw. This episode is just one example of how fear-based disinformation is derailing international cooperation before implementation even begins.