IN A NUTSHELL
Editor's note
Find an op-ed piece here on the recently concluded  59th Session of the UN Commission on Population and Development, whereby the theme of the Commission was on population, technology and research in the context of sustainable development and a major sticking point in the negotiations (closed without outcome) was tech transfer between the global North and global South. 

As a topic with extremely important implications for people in today’s world arena, I am pleased to share the piece within PEAH network and beyond, while readers are invited to comment on its content and suggestions. 

This debrief article reflects the personal views of the author, based on professional experience, and does not represent the official positions of any government delegation or institution

By Levi Singh
Regional Policy Officer at SRHR Africa Trust

Johannesburg, South Africa

The System Isn’t Stalling. It’s Being Rewritten

An Insider View from CPD59 (and Beyond!)

 

I have spent enough time in multilateral rooms to recognise the difference between a difficult negotiation and a hollow one. Having now supported twelve sessions of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, I do not say this lightly.

CPD59 was not difficult in the way these multilateral processes are meant to be. It was something else entirely. The zero draft, the foundation for negotiations, was notably weak when first circulated by the Chair, though it was meaningfully improved through the concerted efforts of Member States. By the time Revision 2 of the draft resolution emerged, it contained elements many of us could accept, or at the very least live with, as is the nature of political compromise. Yet even then, very little of what makes multilateralism function, compromise, explanation, reciprocity, and movement, was genuinely on offer.

That distinction matters.

Because when a system stops negotiating in good faith, it does not simply stall. It begins, quietly and incrementally, to rewrite itself.

From the outside, the breakdown will be framed as familiar. Divergence between North and South. Sensitivities around language. A complex geopolitical context. All true, and all insufficient.

Inside the room, the fault lines were sharper.

Take technology transfer. For many Global South delegations, this is not an abstract principle. It is foundational to any credible pathway toward development. South Africa and others grounded their position in existing global commitments that recognise the diffusion of technology and know-how as central to economic growth and sustainable development. That should not have been controversial. Especially since we have a UN General Assembly consensus-based resolution supporting this, as recently as 2024 (A/RES/79/216).

Yet it was treated as negotiable in a way that exposed a deeper reluctance, particularly from parts of the Global North, to move beyond tightly controlled, voluntary frameworks that preserve asymmetry (and entrench inequality – remember SDG10?!) while continuing to speak the language of partnership.

That is not a mere technical disagreement. It is a political choice.

A similar dynamic played out in debates around “the family”. Attempts to advance a singular, ideologically loaded definition were not simply about wording. They were about which and whose realities are recognized and validated in global policy. For those of us coming from contexts shaped by colonialism, apartheid, the AIDS epidemic, migration, and economic exclusion, the insistence on a narrow, nuclear framing is not only inaccurate but also dismissive of our lived realities.

Multigenerational households. Child-headed households. Extended kinship systems. These are not novel cases. They are the social infrastructure of entire societies. Ignoring that in policy language is not neutral. It is exclusion by intention and design.

But these visible tensions only tell part of the story.

What is less visible, and far more consequential, is the extent to which multilateral negotiation is now being shaped outside multilateral spaces.

There is a growing alignment between what happens in rooms like CPD and what is being pursued through bilateral channels. The shift toward “trade not aid”, the quiet expansion of bilateral health agreements in the wake of eliminated funding through mechanisms like PEPFAR, and the parallel effort to consolidate political blocs around initiatives such as the Geneva Consensus Declaration and PROTEGO, all of this sits in the background of what we are seeing play out in the basement conference rooms in New York.

None of it is formally on the table; however, all of it shapes the table.

It is not unreasonable to assume that positions taken in multilateral negotiations are increasingly linked to incentives and pressures applied elsewhere. Preferential access to critical minerals for the production of semiconductors and microchips (ask your nerdy friends!). Funding streams. Strategic political alignment. In that environment, consensus is not just negotiated. It is conditioned.

That is what transactional multilateralism looks like in practice.

And it explains why spaces like the CPD are becoming harder to navigate. Not because disagreement has increased, but because the terms of engagement have shifted.

The outcome, or lack thereof, reflects that shift. As noted in the Global South Coalition for SRHR and Development Justice statement, this is not simply a missed resolution. It is a drift toward geopolitical positioning over collective well-being.

The consequences are immediate.

When there is no agreed outcome, there is no shared political direction. When there is no direction, national and regional implementation fragments. And when implementation fragments, the burden does not fall on those negotiating texts. It falls on those who depend on what those texts are meant to enable, empower, and support.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Millions more lack access to contraception, to safe health care, including abortion services, to basic autonomy over their own bodies and lives. These are not statistics that sit on the margins of development; rather, they are indicators of whether development is happening at all.

The CPD, anchored in the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action, remains one of the few spaces where these issues are addressed in an integrated way. Undermining that space, whether through inaction or design, has direct implications for delivery in communities.

It also raises serious questions about institutional direction.

Proposals to merge United Nations Population Fund with UN Women are often framed as efficiency gains. From a distance, that may sound reasonable. Up close, it risks collapsing distinct mandates at precisely the moment when technical focus and programmatic clarity are most needed. Efficiency should never come at the cost of effectiveness.

Looking ahead, the sequencing should concern anyone paying attention.

CPD60 will focus on poverty eradication. In another moment, that might have been unifying. In this one, it risks becoming another site of contestation, particularly as conversations turn toward debt relief, financial justice, and the structural conditions that enable and sustain inequality (Hello, Stiglitz!).

Beyond that sits 2027, and what is likely to be the final global review of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals before 2030. A moment intended as a final course correction in this “decade of action for the SDGs” now risks becoming something more subdued in the shadow of UN80 reforms. We have roughly 66 months left.

That is not a long time. It is certainly not enough to pretend that multilateral processes alone will deliver outcomes.

And then there is the question we are not yet asking loudly enough. What comes after 2030?

Because the truth is this. The post-2030 development architecture is already being shaped. Not only through formal negotiations, but through the behaviours we are normalising now. If we accept a version of multilateralism that is increasingly transactional, increasingly selective, and increasingly detached from decades-old rights-based commitments, then that is the system we will carry forward.

And it will not be a people-centred one.

At the heart of the current framework sit the principles of people, planet, peace, prosperity, and partnerships. In practice, what is most at risk is not the language, but the intent. Particularly the idea of solidarity.

Without solidarity, partnerships become conditional. Without solidarity, development becomes uneven by design. Without solidarity, inequality is not reduced; it is rationalised as yet another indicator and target.

So, we are left with a choice, and it is a more immediate one than many are willing to admit.

We can continue along this path, preserving the appearance of multilateralism while hollowing out its substance, allowing an international order to consolidate that serves the interests of a few.

Or we can choose to correct course. Deliberately. Urgently. And with a level of honesty that reflects the stakes.

The United Nations still offers the space to do that.

But after twelve CPDs, I am less convinced that space, on its own, is enough.

Because if processes continue to fracture, outcomes will follow.

And when outcomes fail, it is not institutions that absorb the cost.

It is people.