City networks in the UN system: the crisis of multilateralism as an opportunity?

Cities are increasingly acknowledged within the UN system not merely as critical sites to address global governance challenges but as purposeful actors with a role to play in both shaping and implementing these agendas. Cities, networks and their supporters have invested significant resources in seeking recognition and influence within the UN system and have seen tangible impacts from these engagements. They have done so during a period of uncertainty, if not profound crisis, for the UN and multilateralism more generally (Guilbaud et al., 2023). Increasingly conflictual geopolitics, protectionism, and military and economic coercion are threatening the fabric of multilateralism in the 21st century. This paper considers the pathways to multilateral engagement that city networks have been influential in generating, and it questions the extent to which these hard-fought efforts toward recognition are a valuable pursuit for advancing global urban development in a context of fragmented global governance. While disruptive, the fracturing of the state-led international order may also be an opportunity for city networks to increase their importance within domains of global governance.