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By Joseph K. Ingram and Augusto Lopez-Claros

June 18, 2026

Leaders of the G7 gathered in France this week amid growing geopolitical uncertainty and mounting global challenges.

In an era marked by fragmentation and strategic rivalry, forums such as the G7 remain among the few venues where political leaders can step back from immediate crises and consider the broader stewardship of the international system.

The ultimate value of such gatherings lies not only in their ability to address today’s headlines, but in their willingness to confront the deeper forces shaping the future. Climate change, rising inequality, demographic pressures, migration, corruption, artificial intelligence, and the weakening of multilateral institutions are systemic challenges that transcend national borders and electoral cycles.

The effectiveness of the G7, and of any coalition of democratic and like-minded states, will ultimately depend on its capacity not merely to respond to immediate crises, but to address the longer-term structural challenges that increasingly determine global stability and prosperity.

As argued in a Global Governance Forum paper published late last year, effective international cooperation depends on a shared commitment to human dignity, the rule of law, responsible governance, and the development of institutions capable of addressing common challenges.

These principles are not abstract aspirations. They are practical requirements for navigating an increasingly interdependent world and managing risks that no nation can confront alone.

In January, Prime Minister Mark Carney called on like-minded powers to help chart a new path—one grounded in democratic governance, the rule of law, human rights, and international cooperation. Whether led by “middle powers” or by a broader coalition of willing states, such a path cannot be built on values alone. It requires a practical policy agenda.

The following seven priorities represent areas where constructive international leadership could help strengthen both national resilience and global cooperation. While the views expressed here are those of the authors, the priorities outlined below were informed by a recent discussion hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation with scholars, policymakers, and practitioners from multiple regions, reflecting a shared concern with the future of international cooperation and effective global governance.

Climate Change: Financing the Transition

Climate change remains the defining environmental challenge of our time. The technologies needed to reduce emissions already exist. Renewable energy is increasingly competitive, clean-energy efficiency continues to improve, and scientific understanding of climate risks has never been stronger.

The principal obstacle is no longer technological. It is financial and political.

The transition to a low-carbon economy will require investments measured in the tens of trillions of dollars over the coming decades, much of it in developing countries, where energy demand is growing most rapidly. At the same time, climate adaptation — from strengthening water systems to improving agricultural resilience and disaster preparedness — requires substantial new resources.

Fortunately, the policy tools are available. Carbon pricing can create incentives to reduce emissions while generating revenues that can be used to protect vulnerable populations. Green bonds and other sustainable finance instruments can channel private capital toward environmentally beneficial investments. Multilateral development banks can leverage their balance sheets more effectively, while innovative uses of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) can help provide climate finance to countries with limited fiscal resources.

They can also induce their member governments to apply analytical tools that conserve, sustain, and regenerate the planet’s natural capital, rather than destroying it and contributing to global warming and declining productivity through almost exclusive use of GDP as the metric for measuring economic progress.

The challenge is not a lack of solutions. It is the absence of sufficient international coordination and the political commitment to deploy them at the scale required, combined with the pushback from vested economic, financial and political interests.

Inequality: Rebuilding Social Cohesion

For decades, economists focused primarily on inequality between countries. Encouragingly, that gap has narrowed as hundreds of millions of people in Asia and elsewhere have escaped poverty.

Yet a new challenge has emerged. Inequality is no longer mainly global – it is increasingly local.

Today, much of the world’s inequality reflects widening gaps within countries rather than between them. Citizens compare themselves not to people in distant nations but to their neighbours, colleagues, and those they encounter online. As economic gains become concentrated among a relatively small segment of society, frustration and mistrust grow.

This matters because excessive inequality threatens more than economic performance. It undermines social cohesion by focusing blame on immigrant minorities, fuelling political polarization, weakening trust in institutions, and eroding confidence in democratic governance.

Importantly, however, inequality is not unavoidable. Many countries have demonstrated that progressive taxation, high-quality public education, universal access to healthcare, strong labour-market institutions, and targeted social protections can reduce disparities while sustaining economic dynamism. Gender inequality deserves particular attention, not only because it is unjust but because societies that fail to fully utilize the talents of half their populations undermine their own development prospects.

The policy challenge is therefore not technical but rather more effective public communication and civic education; shielding society from misinformation and unregulated social media, while building the capacity to inform democratic governments on how to create shared prosperity.

Demography: Preparing for the Aging Century

One of the most predictable challenges of the twenty-first century is also one of the least discussed.

Across Europe, North America, East Asia, and increasingly in many emerging economies, populations are aging rapidly. Life expectancy has risen dramatically while birth rates have fallen. The result is a growing imbalance between retirees and working-age populations.

This demographic transformation, producing a narrowing tax base, will place enormous pressure on pension systems, healthcare expenditures, and public finances. In some countries, age-related spending could rise by several percentage points over the coming decades, producing difficult fiscal choices.

Yet demographic trends are among the most foreseeable developments governments face. With girls being educated and women entering the labour force, birth rates will continue to fall. Unlike financial crises or geopolitical shocks, however, aging populations do not arrive unexpectedly.

Prudent governments should therefore adopt long-term strategies that include pension reform, greater labour-force participation, investments in productivity, and fiscal planning that looks beyond electoral cycles. Migration must also play an important role in mitigating labour shortages, aging populations, and supporting economic growth.

The greatest risk is not aging itself, but political procrastination in addressing an inexorable demographic transition. As one observer famously noted, “the future has no lobbyists.

Migration: Managing Mobility, Not Resisting It

Migration is often portrayed primarily as a crisis. Historically, however, it has been one of humanity’s most successful development instruments, a most effective mechanism for global poverty reduction according to the World Bank.

People move because opportunities are unevenly distributed. Workers seek jobs, families seek security, students seek education, and entrepreneurs seek environments in which they can thrive. Throughout history, migration has contributed to economic growth, innovation, and cultural exchange.

And the forces driving migration are unlikely to disappear. Indeed, fuelled by global warming and its impact, especially in the low-income countries on the African continent, migratory push-factors will intensify, producing widening income gaps and demographic imbalances. Many developing countries must create millions of jobs for rapidly growing populations, while many advanced economies face labour shortages associated with aging societies.

Attempts to suppress migration entirely are unlikely to succeed, nor should they. The more realistic objective is to manage mobility in an orderly, humane, and economically beneficial manner.

This requires expanding legal migration pathways, improving the recognition of professional qualifications, strengthening refugee protection systems, and promoting integration. It also requires addressing the underlying drivers of migration through better governance, economic opportunity, and institutional development in countries of origin.

The goal should not be a world without migration. It should be a world in which migration is better governed and produces win-win outcomes.

Corruption and Good Governance

Corruption remains one of the most significant obstacles to development worldwide.

Its costs extend far beyond stolen money. Corruption weakens public institutions, undermines the rule of law, discourages investment, fuels inequality, and erodes citizens’ trust in government. It diverts resources away from essential public services such as education, healthcare, infrastructure, and social protection.

The challenge has become increasingly transnational. Today’s kleptocrats often move illicit wealth through sophisticated international networks involving shell companies, offshore financial centres, law firms, banks, and professional intermediaries. While corruption operates globally, enforcement mechanisms remain largely national.

Important progress has been made through transparency initiatives, anti-money laundering frameworks, digital governance tools, and beneficial ownership registries. Yet a major accountability gap persists when those responsible for corruption control the very institutions charged with enforcing the law.

This is why growing attention is being paid to the proposal for an International Anti-Corruption Court. Operating as a court of last resort, such an institution would intervene only when national authorities are unwilling or unable to prosecute serious cases of grand corruption or “state capture.” Like international mechanisms addressing war crimes and crimes against humanity, it would strengthen accountability while reinforcing rather than replacing domestic institutions.

A world serious about development must also be serious about integrity.

Artificial Intelligence: Governing a Transformative Technology

Artificial intelligence may prove to be the most consequential technological development of the century.

Its potential benefits are enormous. AI could accelerate scientific discovery, improve healthcare, enhance productivity, and help address challenges ranging from climate modelling to medical diagnosis.

Yet its risks are equally profound.

AI raises difficult questions about accountability, privacy, surveillance, misinformation, cybersecurity, and the future of work. Deepfakes threaten public trust. Autonomous weapons raise ethical and legal concerns. The integration of AI with cyber systems creates new vulnerabilities. More fundamentally, AI challenges traditional assumptions about responsibility and decision-making.

Unlike previous technological revolutions, AI is advancing within the context of both corporate and geopolitical competition. The race among technology firms is occurring simultaneously with a broader strategic competition between major powers, particularly the United States and China.

This dynamic makes regulation difficult but no less necessary.

The world needs common standards for transparency, safety testing, accountability, and oversight of advanced AI systems. International dialogue on AI governance should be pursued with the same seriousness that previous generations brought to nuclear arms control and non-proliferation. The future is too important to be left solely to governments, corporations or technologists acting independently of broad democratic oversight.

Multilateralism and United Nations Reform

Ultimately, none of the previous challenges can be addressed effectively without stronger international institutions.

Climate change, migration, pandemics, financial instability, trade and global value chains, AI governance, and corruption all transcend national borders. Yet many of the institutions responsible for managing these challenges reflect a world that existed in 1945 rather than one that exists today.

The United Nations remains indispensable. Its achievements include advancing decolonization, promoting human rights, supporting development, and helping prevent major-power war for nearly eight decades. Yet its structures increasingly struggle to reflect contemporary geopolitical realities.

A serious conversation about reform is therefore overdue.

Proposals under discussion include an expanded and more representative Security Council, the creation of a Parliamentary Assembly to give citizens a stronger voice in global governance, an Earth System Council focused on planetary stewardship, strengthened collective security arrangements, reforms to ECOSOC, and enhanced authority for the International Court of Justice.

Importantly, the current UN Charter already provides a pathway for review through Article 109, which allows member states to convene a Charter Review Conference.

Reforming the United Nations, along with the WTO and the Bretton Woods institutions will not be easy. But the costs of failing to adapt our institutions to contemporary realities are likely to be far greater than the costs of reform itself.

The central question facing the international community today is not whether any group of countries can replace the United States or China. They cannot. The more important question is whether a coalition of willing states can help preserve and renew a rules-based international order grounded in democratic governance, human dignity, accountability, and global cooperation.

Climate stability, social cohesion, demographic sustainability, orderly migration, clean governance, responsible AI, and stronger multilateral institutions are not separate agendas. They are mutually reinforcing pillars of a more resilient world order, indispensable to the future health and sustainability of life on the planet.

And the policy tools do exist. What is too-often lacking is enlightened and effective political leadership, institutional imagination, and the willingness to cooperate across borders.

A coalition of willing states can help supply those ingredients. One practical next step would be to initiate a serious discussion of Article 109 of the United Nations Charter, which provides a mechanism for convening a Charter Review Conference. Such a process could do more than revisit the institutional architecture of the United Nations. It could provide an opportunity to reaffirm the principles and policy priorities necessary for effective international cooperation in the twenty-first century.

Whether through Charter review, institutional reform, or new forms of international partnership, the task remains the same: to build a safer, fairer, and more sustainable future through cooperation rather than fragmentation.

Joseph Ingram is a former President of The North South Institute, a former World Bank Special Representative to the United Nations and the WTO, and a former Director of The World Bank office in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Augusto Lopez-Claros is the Executive Director of the Global Governance Forum, a Swiss-based nonprofit foundation. He has written extensively on issues of international cooperation. His latest book, Global Governance and International Cooperation: Managing Global Catastrophic Risks in the 21^st Century, co-edited with Princeton´s Richard Falk, was published by Routledge in 2024.