In the early 1980s the environmental slogan was ‘think globally, act locally’. It could just as well have applied to the discourse about our international institutions. One of the ironies of recent history is that just as many countries are delivering greater formal electoral power than ever to their people, so real power around a range of issues which affect ordinary people has been shifting from nations themselves to supranational levels. At the same time many of the supranational institutions of global governance have now taken on decision-making powers which are far greater than those that were part of their original mandate. This is partly to do with mission creep and partly to do with simply adjusting to new global realities. Today those institutions require urgent reform which recognises four critical deficits.

Firstly there is a democratic deficit. When the World Bank and IMF are informed by a ‘one-dollar, one-vote’ approach then you end up with institutions making policies that affect developing countries but don’t listen to them. From where we sit in civil society, our concern is that on the one hand these institutions can appear disrespectful of our developing country governments in terms of reflecting voting power, and on the other they say they make decisions by consensus not by vote. To us, it seems too often that the decisions that won’t be won in a vote are the ones that do not come to a vote.

Secondly there is a coherence deficit. So you might have a situation where a country’s finance minister is going to the World Bank, the foreign minister to the UN, the health minister to the WHO and the trade minister to the WTO – and there is a deep territorialism in each of those institutions, even within the different levels of the UN itself.This, combined with the multiplicity of structure, leads to an incoherence at an international level which contributes to an incoherence at a national level. Whether or not you argue for ‘One UN’, you still need massive rationalisation. We are victims of history. These institutions have evolved over time but it seems that we have never been able to follow through on our questions about how we rationalise them. The increasingly complex management of all these levels of engagement brings special problems for developing countries, who find it a huge strain on relatively small budgets. Many countries in Africa can barely keep up with their membership dues to different institutions – I know several countries that struggle to meet their obligations.

Thirdly there is a compliance deficit. If the system is costing so much, then citizens have a right to ask what it is delivering and what is its effect. Over time, have these institutions complied with the decisions they have made? The feeling here is that there is a repeated culture of passing from the grandiose resolution made in public at global summits to the far more modest reality of execution. For example there were great promises of reform of the Bretton Woods institutions after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, when everyone understood we could not go back to business as usual. But so far these have remained only promises.

Finally there is a legitimacy and credibility deficit. As these institutions become more powerful, as their influence stretches further into people’s lives, they must secure a broad legitimacy in the eyes of the global public. In fact the legitimacy of many of these institutions is in decline (with the exception of the UN which at different times is both very popular and very unpopular). Business folk at one end and development activists at the other are equally fed up with the WTO and its failure to deliver a successful trade deal. The risk of these institutions losing credibility is that it will encourage calls that they be shut down because they are beyond reforming. If we recognise the deficits that exist in the global governance framework, we must agree that significant rationalisation and updating is central to reforming them. Only a fairer and more balanced distribution of power – which includes far more access to voices from civil society – will deal with the current deficits.

Dr Kumi Naidoo is Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Civic Participation, an alliance of over 500 civil society organisations in 100 countries, dedicated to strengthening civil society action.