The annual spectacle of the United Nations General Assembly has once again unfurled, a familiar tableau of grand pronouncements and carefully crafted speeches. From the gilded halls, we hear the echoes of global leaders, each vying for attention, for influence, for a moment to shape the narrative. This year, as in many before it, the spotlight often shone brightest on the usual suspects, with discussions framed by the concerns of the Global North. We saw this, starkly, in the discourse surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address, a speech that, through the lens of former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, was analyzed for its geopolitical implications and diplomatic nuances. But from where I sit, looking out from the perspectives of Accra, or Bogotá, or Jakarta, a different truth emerges: for many, these speeches feel increasingly disconnected from the lived realities of people struggling for dignity and survival.
It is not to diminish the importance of regional conflicts or the tireless work of diplomats, but rather to question whose voices are amplified and whose experiences are rendered invisible within these global forums. When the conversation centers predominantly on the geopolitics of established powers – the United States, Israel, and their intricate dance – it often leaves precious little room for the foundational issues that impact billions across the Global South. We hear of peace treaties and strategic alliances, but where is the equally urgent discussion, at the same decibel, about the looming debt crises strangling national development, the predatory extraction of resources leaving communities impoverished, or the existential threat of a changing climate that disproportionately affects those with the fewest resources?
The people I speak with, from the farmers in the Sahel facing relentless droughts to the urban dwellers in Manila confronting rising sea levels, are not waiting with bated breath for pronouncements from New York that merely reinforce existing power structures. They are waiting for solutions. They are waiting for recognition of their inherent value, their land’s resources, and their right to self-determination, free from the heavy hand of economic imperialism disguised as aid or investment. They are keenly aware that behind every diplomatic communiqué lies a potential impact on their children’s schools, their access to clean water, or the very stability of their communities.
Netanyahu’s speech, like many delivered by leaders of powerful nations, will have been carefully calibrated for its domestic audience and its geopolitical partners. Ambassador Nides’ insights would have illuminated the strategic underpinnings, the signals sent, the relationships cultivated or strained. This is the language of power, of statecraft. But for the fishermen whose livelihoods are threatened by distant factory trawlers, for the communities whose ancestral lands are eyed for rare earth minerals, for the nations burdened by sovereign debt accrued during global crises they did not create, this language often translates into continued marginalization. The absence of their stories, their struggles, their priorities, from the forefront of the UNGA agenda is not an oversight; it is an endemic feature of how global power operates.
When we focus solely on the pronouncements from major capitals, we risk missing the profound shifts and the enduring challenges faced by the majority of the world’s population. We risk affirming a global hierarchy that privileges some narratives while actively silencing others. The UN was founded on the promise of collective security and shared prosperity, a promise that feels increasingly distant for many in the Global South. Their security is undermined by external forces and internal instability fueled by systemic inequalities, and their prosperity is often siphoned away before it can even take root.
It is time to pivot the conversation, to insist that the UNGA – and the powerful nations that dominate its discussions – dedicate equal, if not greater, urgency to the voices that are typically relegated to the footnotes. What does “peace” truly mean when communities are starved of resources? What does “security” encompass when climate change displaces millions? These are not abstract questions; they are the daily lived experiences of people whose resilience is constantly tested.
So, while the analysts dissect the speeches and the diplomats engage in their high-stakes chess game, let us not forget the millions for whom the UNGA feels like a distant, echoing chamber. Let us insist that the resolutions passed and the commitments made truly serve not just the powerful, but the multitude of human beings striving for a just and equitable world, whose stories deserve to be heard, not as an afterthought, but as the very core of our global conversation.