Paula Caballero is the Regional Managing Director for Latin America at The Nature Conservancy. Previously, Paula Caballero was Senior Director of the World Bank Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice, and she was the creator of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Her recent book is “Redefining Development: The Extraordinary Genesis of the Sustainable Development Goals.” Colombia created the concept of the SDGs which were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015. The SDG concept was geared to a universal agenda because all countries have development issues and there are common global problems, such as climate and migration, that needed to be confronted. The SDGs were laudable in that the emphasis was to eradicate poverty, eliminate hunger, empower women and girls, combat climate change, and 13 additional goals. The corporate sector was very supportive because the SDGs were concrete proposals to confront problems from a macro-standpoint with systemic solutions.

Dr. Winston Langley is Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science and International Relations and

Senior Fellow at McCormack Graduate School for Policy & Global Studies. He has written widely on the United Nations, disarmament, human rights and women’s rights in the US. His recent book is “Abolishing War.” A major problem is that we have a “Culture of War” that glorifies war and makes heroes of its participants; the Military, Industrial, Media, Academic Complex justify militarization and the media is complicit because they want to please advertisers, many of whom have a direct financial or political interest in launching a war. The UN could play a major role in abolishing war, but there must be some changes: UN Secretary-General would have a seven-year term, the World Court would accept charges by individuals; UN would establish a Court of Humans Rights; and, Security Council is expanded to include other key countries.

Dr. Margaret P. (Peggy) Karns is a Senior Fellow in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security and Global Governance at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of Dayton. She is coauthor of “International Organizations: The Politics and Processes of Global Governance (4th ed., 2024)” and “The United Nations in the 21st Century (6th ed., 2022).” She lived and taught in both China and Vietnam in the 1990s. Global Governance is not a one-world government, but it is a way to bring together the norms and institutions to recognize, understand and deal with the major challenges confronting them. The UN is the epicenter, while the states, other intergovernmental organizations, non-state actors/NGOS, are critically involved. The UN is a complex system that works to confront problems, such as climate crisis, wars, humanitarian relief, diseases, as well as helping move ships, aircraft, mail and weather information safely worldwide.