联合国的效率困境：为何“全民会议”可能正在阻碍全球合作？
下次您乘坐国际航班时，请帮个小忙：
拿出您的护照，看看封面上印着的是什么——是您国家的国徽。翻开内页，在您的照片下方，有两行字母与数字的组合，这被称为机器可读区（Machine-Readable Zone）。这两行文字看似普通，却是国际协作的奇迹产物。
Original English
The next time you take an international trip, do me a favor. Take a look at your passport. On the cover, there’s your country’s coat of arms. And then you open it, and there’s your photograph. The best one you've ever taken, right? On that page, there's two lines at the bottom. Letters and numbers. That's called the machine-readable zone. Those two lines are magic. The product of international cooperation. Because without them, you wouldn't be able to get on that plane. You wouldn't be able to cross immigration. You wouldn't be able to travel the world, see your family.没有它，您将无法登机、入境或在全球范围内与家人相聚。令人着迷的是，这两行代码诞生于国际民用航空组织（ICAO）在1980年推动的护照标准化计划中。起初仅有三个国家采用该标准，如今几乎每个国家都已采纳这一设计。它彰显了国际合作的最佳状态。
Original English
Now what I find fascinating is that those two lines came about in 1980, when the International Civil Aviation Organization set about standardizing passports. At the beginning, only three countries adopted the standard. Today, just about every single country has that standard. This is international cooperation at its best.但国际合作并不止于此。160年前，二十个国家曾联手奠定全球电信网络的基础框架，并成立了国际电报联盟（ITU）。即便在战争时期，如乌克兰冲突中，美国、中国、欧洲、亚洲、非洲、拉丁美洲和俄罗斯的代表仍能在ITU会议室中坐在一起，讨论互联网协议或全球数字治理。
Original English
And it doesn't stop there. Some people will watch this talk on the internet, or at least I hope they will. Well, did you know that, 160 years ago, 20 countries came together to lay the foundations of our global telecommunications networks? They founded something called the International Telegraph Union, or the ITU. It's still active today, although it's moved on from the telegraph. Even in times of conflict, global cooperation continues.您知道吗？时区制是由多边协议确立的；交通信号中的绿色代表“通行”，也是基于多边协定的结果。国际合作不仅便利了我们的生活，更是现代世界不可或缺的基础设施。
Original English
Did you know that time zones exist because of a multilateral agreement, or that green means "go" because of a multilateral agreement? Our lives are made better when countries collaborate. It is the infrastructure of the modern world, and we can't live without it.然而，今天我们在面对一个信任危机——对国际体系的信任正在崩溃。
Original English
But today ... we're facing a crisis of trust. Trust in the international system.身为从事国际组织工作的人员，我每天都能感受到这种信任流失。提到多边主义与效率并列，很多人会联想到繁文缛节、官僚程序或政治作秀，并质疑这些组织是否真的有实际成效。他们不禁怀疑：多边主义还有价值吗？
Original English
I see this every day, because I work with international organizations and their leaders, trying to make them more effective. And I'll be the first to admit that talking about multilateralism and effectiveness in the same sentence sounds a bit complicated. Many think about these organizations and they see a mesh of red tape, or they see endless bureaucracy or political posturing. They wonder, is there any tangible impact? It's making people lose faith in international organizations.在全球局势不断变化的今天，这些机构大多建立于二战结束后的地缘政治框架之下。80年过去了，它们是否还能跟上时代的步伐？
Original English
In our constantly changing world, is it any surprise that the institutions crafted around the geopolitical realities of the end of the Second World War, 80 years ago, that those organizations are struggling to keep up? It's making us ask—is international cooperation even worth it?我想告诉您的是：它仍然值得。
Original English
Well, I'm here to persuade you that it absolutely is.但要重新赢得信任，我们就必须放弃“全民会议”的老路子。
Original English
Allow me to offer something rather provocative. We must stop insisting on inviting everybody to the meeting.想象一下，如果200位同事同时参与撰写您的演讲稿或项目预算，您是否能想象那种混乱？这正是试图从一开始就让全球所有国家达成一致时所面临的困境。
Original English
Sounds a bit hard, I know, but hear me out. Imagine trying to get your slide deck together, or your project budget, or your memo written with 200 of your most well-meaning colleagues working with you on it. Sounds pretty difficult, right? Which is why trying to negotiate anything with 193 countries at the outset and trying to achieve global consensus on that issue will deliver one thing for certain, if anything at all—and that is the least objectionable outcome.但要重建信任并应对全球最紧迫的挑战，我们不能满足于“最无争议”的结果。我们需要的是最为雄心勃勃、具有变革性的成果。
Original English
But to rebuild trust ... and take on the most difficult challenges of our time, we cannot settle for the least objectionable outcome. We need the most ambitious, the bold, the transformative outcomes.为此，我们可以从一种**灵活而高效的外交工具——“志同者联盟（Coalitions of the Willing）”**入手。
Original English
So let's take an alternative and augmented path forward—one that is rooted in the art of diplomacy, one that has served us for over a century, but one which we seem to have lost.这些联盟由志同道合甚至看似矛盾的利益相关方组成，包括南北国家、东西方国家、社会组织、学术机构与企业。他们共同面对那些需要真正协作和共创才能解决的全球性问题。
Original English
I define coalitions of the willing as small, dynamic groups of like-minded, and sometimes not so like-minded actors coming together. They can be some combination of countries from the South and the North, the East and the West. Civil society organizations, academic institutions, religious organizations—and businesses—they come together with shared purpose.联盟承担风险，作为第一个吃螃蟹的人。他们率先行动、探索道路，并为其他参与者铺平道路，推动雪球效应向前滚动。
Original English
The coalition takes on the risk—it serves itself up as the guinea pig. It proves the model—and makes it easy for others to join in, pushing the snowball down the mountain.让我们以一个经典的案例作为佐证：信用卡标准化的诞生并非由全球大会推动，而是由几家银行自发协商形成。
Original English
I love this example from the 1950s when banks started issuing credit cards. Some were small, some large—some paper-made others plastic. There was no interoperability.如果今天我们要重新制定信用卡标准，仍坚持“全民大会”的方式，那将是极其低效的。委员会将召开无休止的磋商会议，并最终得出一个“最无争议”的妥协方案。
Original English
Imagine we had to renegotiate, or start afresh negotiating what a standard credit card looks like today—which would involve committees running consultations endlessly—with hundreds of actors—including those super-relevant and others less relevant—before delivering a convention or resolution for negotiation among all countries.最终，我们只能得到一个妥协的最低共识方案——而非真正解决问题的答案。
Original English
And the result? The least objectionable outcome.因此，我们需要重新找回灵活、高效且具有先验性的协作模式。
Original English
Which is why today, we need to start with coalitions of the willing—to make things work ambitiously for the future.LEAF联盟（Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance Coalition）就是一个鼓舞人心的例子。
Original English
One example that gives me a lot of hope is the LEAF Coalition—the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance Coalition.它由**少数捐助国、拥有森林的国家、企业及社会团体组成，他们不等待所有国家就条约的最后一句达成一致——而是率先行动。**他们投入数十亿美元，创建了一个保护自然的新市场。
Original English
It started with a handful of countries that were donors, countries that had forests—a few corporations—and civil-society organizations—they sat at a table—small—and tried figuring out what do we do about deforestation? How do we protect biodiversity?现在，越来越多国家与组织正争相加入这一联盟。
Original English
They acted—they put billions on the line—and created a new market—and now everyone rushes in.这就是我们所追求的——真正面向未来的多边主义。
Original English
This is what twentieth-century multilateralism and cooperation can—and should—be.我们站在一个十字路口：是继续坚持旧的路径，还是勇敢地迈出新的一步？
Original English
And so we have a choice—Should we stay together—and take this new path forward—or should we walk away?我选择前者——因为我们必须重新信任彼此，才能解决这个时代最大的问题。