Guest blog by Susanne Salz: opportunity to co-create future global governance - open until Sunday 11th December

Susanne Salz is the Founder of the United Actors . Previously she worked at the city association ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, at the "Think and Do Tank" Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production as well as at UNV and the OECD. She studied International Relations at the LSE, the University of Sussex and Sciences Po Paris and is a member of the Global Diplomacy Lab .

Back in 2009 I was attending the climate COP in Copenhagen on behalf of ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability. One cold morning I saw some colleagues in the long queue for NGO delegates, who I joined to save time. Once there, I saw that among them was the Mayor of Mexico City at the time, Marcelo Ebrard. Why would somebody governing a community of almost 9 million people be outside in the queue rather than inside having their say and making their contribution?

All actors on board for more inclusive global governance

That was one of a few key moments that led me to found the United Actors: a new structure better suited to today's complex global reality in which different actors matter. When the UN has created 70 years ago, nation states were the only globally relevant actors. Think of any of today's global problems - climate change, migration, trade, pandemics, even war. Is it only nations who matter for addressing those issues? No! It's also cities, business and civil society. They should be at the global governance table on eye-to-eye level with national governments, participating and being responsible, too.

From negotiation to co-creation

All too often in UN negotiations the mindset if one of zero-sum negotiations: one country's gain is another country's loss. But we (mostly) no longer live in a world of territorial disputes, but one of globalisation and interdependence. Thus, we need to move from a mentality of zero-sum negotiations towards one of all winning together - or all losing together. That means the spirit of global governance needs to move from negotiating to co-creating the solutions that we all need and know that we all need.

How can we do that? Have your say now at cocreate.united-actors.org.

To address these two key points we are founding the United Actors. We realize that there are many existing good ideas and practices in the space of multi-stakeholder global governance and multi stakeholder project implementation, which can and should be taken on board to create this new and unique United Actors. That’s why we created an online consultation for everyone to share their views, thoughts, ideas and experiences. The fantastic tool for this consultation has been provided by Insights  and ensures that your comments are considered for deriving joint insights and shaping decisions. You will be updated on your personal impact once the consultation ends on Sunday 11th December.

We invite you to join the discussion here. A short and easy registration is required, as we want contributions that you are happy to stand for with your name. Your input matters and we look forward to hearing from you.

 Follow them on their new twitter account @unitedactors8 .