Human Security, Multilateralism, and Solidarity

Abstract In 2022, the UN Development Programme ( UNDP ) released a Special Report on threats to human security in the Anthropocene, a year after UN Secretary-General António Guterres released his report Our Common Agenda . In anticipation of the 2024 Summit of the Future, both called for a reinvigoration of networked multilateralism and for solidarity to be adopted as a third human security pillar alongside protection and empowerment. This article explores those expectations against a deeper understanding of the UN history of human security and a cycle of declared concerns about human insecurity and precarity dating at least to UNDP ’s 1994 Human Development Report. It argues that there is little new in the “next-generation” model of networked multilateralism and that, as a global governance norm, solidarity for human security is underconceptualized and poorly operationalized. It points to the importance of reclaiming the local as a site of people-centered agency, care, and voice.