Ten Challenges for the un in 2021-2022

Ten Challenges for the UN in 2021-2022 
Crisis Group Special Briefing N°6, 13 September 2021 
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the digital revolution, and new factors affecting conflict, such as climate change. Many 
UN member states, including those on the Security Council, are also keen to focus 
more on such non-traditional threats. On 10 September, Guterres released a report 
(“Our Common Agenda”) exploring long-term prospects for international coopera-
tion.
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Although the report has relatively little to say about peace and security – calling 
for further work by states to agree on a “New Agenda for Peace” in the coming years 
– it does emphasise the need for the UN to adapt its conflict management strategies 
and tools. This recommendation may engender more useful debate about how the 
body handles non-traditional threats. 
III.
Ten Challenges for the UN 
Given the limits of UN crisis management, what problems can it hope to address in 
the remainder of 2021 and 2022? The following list of ten challenges is far from com-
prehensive (excluding, for example, Myanmar) but aims to cover four broad categories 
of priorities. First, it highlights urgent conflict threats with major humanitarian con-
sequences: Afghanistan and Ethiopia. It then zeroes in on one Middle Eastern case 
where the UN needs to follow up on successful mediation (Libya) and another where 
a new UN mediation approach could bear fruit (Yemen). Lastly, it covers three situa-
tions where the UN should be alert to shifting political and humanitarian dynamics 
– Haiti, Cyprus and the treatment of Islamic State (ISIS)-affiliated detainees in 
north-eastern Syria – and three thematic areas where the UN can do more to plan 
ahead – dealing with disinformation and misinformation in conflict, climate security 
and getting COVID-19 vaccines to conflict-affected places. The recommendations 
here are meant to be pragmatic rather than aspirational, and the results are uncertain. 
Yet if it wishes to remain credible and relevant, these are the sorts of crises and themes 
it cannot ignore.