For much of the post-Cold War era, globalisation and multilateralism travelled together. Trade expanded, capital moved more freely, supply chains stretched across continents, and international institutions assumed a growing role in managing an increasingly interconnected world.
In the process, the web of linkages between countries and continents became deeper and more complex. Supply chains that were once largely contained within national borders now depend on events unfolding thousands of kilometres away. A political crisis in one country or a drought in a distant region, can affect livelihoods across the world.
Globalisation has led to undeniable benefits. Between 1990 and 2026, nearly 1.5 billion people escaped extreme poverty, even as the global population continued to grow. Greater economic integration has also contributed to lower prices for many traded goods and an unprecedented expansion in the cross-border flow of knowledge, technology and innovation.
But its benefits have not been distributed equally. In many countries, communities experienced greater employment insecurity and income inequality widened even as national economies became wealthier.
The share of total income distributed to workers fell by 1.6 percentage points between 2004 and 2024, due to structural shifts, including automation, globalization and the decline in the bargaining power of workers.
Meanwhile, the number of billionaires worldwide increased from 1,757 in 2015 to 2,919 in 2025, an increase of about 66 percent in just a decade, while their combined wealth rose from $6.3 trillion to $15.8 trillion, an increase of roughly 150 percent. Governments did not always build domestic institutions needed to manage these disruptions.
Social protection, worker retraining and other mechanisms for sharing the gains of economic change did not consistently keep pace with the speed of transformation.
Yet much of the resulting anger has been directed at the international system.
Citizens and their governments are increasingly turning away from the promise of collective solutions and towards a more traditional balance of power: national self-reliance, strategic competition and the balancing of one power against another.
This is particularly consequential for Africa. Despite all its imperfections, multilateralism provides developing states with rules, institutions and collective platforms through which asymmetries of power can be moderated. In a more fragmented and transactional international system, African countries risk increasingly negotiating individually with economic and political powers on profoundly unequal terms.
The consequences extend across many of the continent’s most important strategic interests. On climate change, African countries face some of the most severe consequences despite having contributed relatively little to historical emissions.
Their ability to advocate for adaptation finance and a more equitable distribution of the costs of the climate transition depends heavily on collective action. The same is true of debt, trade, and the growing global competition for critical minerals.
Access to capital is another key example. Developing countries often face significantly higher borrowing costs than advanced economies, limiting their ability to invest in infrastructure, social protection, climate resilience, and economic transformation.
If 94 developing countries could borrow at the same rates as those in developed economies, they could collectively save around $500 billion a year in interest payments. For Africa, the challenge is compounded by perceptions of risk and the way sovereign creditworthiness is assessed.
UNDP has estimated that greater objectivity in sovereign credit ratings could save African countries as much as $74.5 billion through lower interest costs and increased access to financing.
Reforming the international financial architecture – including how risk is assessed, how multilateral development banks deploy their balance sheets, and how affordable long-term finance is made available – therefore cannot be achieved by countries acting alone. It requires collective action and institutions capable of addressing structural inequalities in the global economy.
None of this is to suggest that the multilateral system is beyond criticism. Developing countries remain underrepresented in key areas of global decision-making and perceptions of double standards have eroded confidence in international rules. These failures have contributed to the crisis of trust.
But acknowledging the shortcomings of multilateralism is different from concluding that multilateralism itself is the problem.
Indeed, multilateralism should be judged not against an ideal world, but against the realistic alternative. The alternative to imperfect collective institutions may instead be a more fragmented world in which countries respond separately to problems that cross borders and outcomes are determined increasingly by economic, political and military power.