After attending her first UN General Assembly, a veteran conflict analyst sees a path back to relevance: listen to the Global South, confront the dangers of AI in warfare and embrace more pragmatic peacemaking.
This was my first UN General Assembly. After hearing so many colleagues describe the week’s madness, I approached the week as though it were a field trip to a war zone. The only difference was that instead of packing water and tinned food for the road, I hung my outfit for the following day in the wardrobe every evening.
I went to New York with one question at the front of my mind: Can the organization still play a key role in peace and security in our rapidly changing world? When I began my career in the early 2000s, the UN was in a golden era of peacemaking. Over time, it has become increasingly conspicuous by its absence in many conflict settings, including in Africa, where I have worked in humanitarian response and conflict analysis for the past two decades.
African governments and civil society increasingly question why peacekeeping operations are so limited in their action and impact. The UN has played only a marginal part in efforts to mediate some of the continent’s most violent conflicts, from jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel to the civil war in Sudan. Its liquidity crisis and a wider loss of trust in the institution have also been deeply felt across Africa.
Yet the week helped me see reasons not to write off the UN. I left Manhattan convinced that it can find new energy if it focuses on three areas: greater legitimacy through stronger participation by players from the so-called Global South; a more prominent role in shedding light on the impact of AI in conflict settings; and an increasingly pragmatic approach to peacemaking.
Multilateralism Is Dead, Long Live Multilateralism
The UN’s universal reach is a unique asset, and one that it should build on. “Everyone still wants to be here. This must mean something,” one participant told me. It does. The organization has probably faced more existential threats in the past year than at any time since 1945, and it plainly needs reform.
Yet the General Assembly still gives every state a platform to be heard, a source of legitimacy no other organization can replicate. That is why everyone still comes. But this legitimacy is tarnished when it’s seen as being run by and for the big powers, as I repeatedly heard across many countries where I have worked.
The growing role of Global South states on major global issues offers a response to this criticism. Rich in critical minerals and beset by chronic regional insecurity, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is using its 2026-2027 Security Council term to press for debate on how responsible resource governance can support conflict prevention and peacemaking.
These efforts do not always succeed. European attempts to involve the Global South more closely in finding a way out of Russia’s war on Ukraine have largely fallen short. But the UN seems to be moving in the right direction.
The AI Challenge
Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recognizes it: Turtle Bay is claiming a place in AI governance. Warnings from AI executives that the technology could spiral out of control and threaten humanity sparked calls for regulation. During the high-level week, the Security Council meeting on AI governance, which was convened by France, showed how member states and NGOs appeared determined to put the issue at the top of the agenda.
However, it shouldn’t come at the expense of conflict resolution. After all, war poses a danger to humanity that is as grave as ever. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program reported 65 active conflicts around the world, the highest number since World War II, with millions of civilians caught up in violence and displacement.
The good news is that no one is suggesting that there is space for only one of these challenges atop the UN’s agenda, nor should they. After all, AI governance and conflict resolution are closely linked. We might not know whether AI will lead to humanity’s extinction, but we know that it is already making armed conflict more lethal.
It has been used to build guided rockets in Yemen, create a surveillance platform for Mali’s state intelligence and maliciously harvest identities in Iran and Syria. New technologies such as drones are also erasing front lines and making civilians and humanitarian infrastructure harder to protect, as we see along the Chad-Sudan border.
The UN should use the worried buzz around AI to focus attention on the new forms of warfare it enables. Rather than hearing only from AI chiefs, the organization should also hear from people living through conflicts in which these technologies are used to inflict harm. Their testimony would expose the human cost of leaving AI military uses unregulated and help build consensus around safeguards.
Time for Adaptation
Parts of the UN are already adapting to the new global order, and it should be an organization-wide effort.
The Central African Republic, a country I have followed for years, embodies this new era of conflict resolution. The government first decided to use force to smash the rebels, with the support of an improbable coalition of Russian mercenaries and Rwandan soldiers. It then drew on regional powers, mainly neighboring Chad, to revive dialogue with the remaining armed groups. Despite losing its leading role in the peace process, the UN stabilization mission, MINUSCA, has stayed engaged with the Central African authorities and offered support to disarm and reintegrate militias.
Such arrangements are starting to resonate in New York. The UN is becoming increasingly aware that it can still deploy its strengths in mediation and technical support, provided it remains present in conflict settings and works alongside other actors. By adjusting its peacemaking role, it can have greater impact in the multipolar world we now live in.
Reasons for Hope
The week in New York confirmed what I had felt for some time: conflict resolution had lost its central place in Turtle Bay’s debates. But the organization still has some unparalleled advantages that it can bring to bear on conflict resolution.
These advantages will be all the stronger if the UN can shore up its legitimacy among its less powerful members, demonstrate its value by using the AI debate to highlight the risks AI poses in warfare, and remainengaged in peace efforts even when other actors do not play by the book.
Enrica Picco is Deputy Program Director, Global Issues and Institutions at Crisis Group.
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