The current multilateral system faces major challenges, including a loss of trust in international institutions, ineffective management of global crises, and diverging priorities among established powers. Addressing these issues requires the inclusion of new voices and perspectives. It is with this in mind that GenSouth—an initiative supported by foraus and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, among others—was launched in 2024 to bring together young researchers from the Global South and develop recommendations for a more inclusive and effective multilateralism.

This project brief outlines four key areas offering concrete pathways to rethink multilateralism and ensure a more equitable and sustainable future by 2040:

1. Strengthening International Humanitarian Law (IHL): Promoting enhanced cooperation among states, the private sector, and international institutions to better prevent and sanction violations of IHL.
2. New South-South cooperation: Establishing a platform for sustainable infrastructure that ensures strengthened economic integration and climate resilience.
3. Global financial reform: Ensuring direct and equitable access to climate finance for local communities in the Global South.
4. Transforming the UN Security Council: Developing a more inclusive and representative model that limits the veto power and integrates the Global South more fully into global governance.

Authors: Subia Ahmad, Maria Dominika Mediana Rossa Budhisatrio, Marième Cissé, Marília Closs, Paula Lottenberg, Muhammad Nidhal, Luanda Mpungose, Kwaji Ble Ngida, Olumide Onitekun, Luis Gabriel Herrera Perez, Beatriz Pfeifer, Pratyush Sharma, Parousia Tlhompho Shikwambane, Malena Vi.

The GenSouth programme which brings together young professionals and researchers from Global South Think tanks to engage directly with multilateral actors in Geneva, at the heart of international governance.

This Project Brief is the outcome of the second edition of GenSouth, held in February 2026, and outlines four major axes, each accompanied by concrete policy proposals identifying actionable pathways for reform towards 2050:

• Public systems enabling equitable participation in global governance: with a focus on financial access and mobility, public systems should be co-designed, governed, and transformed with women and youth from the Global South as decision-makers, knowledge holders, and architects of global futures.
• Climate justice led by feminist-decolonial popular assemblies: a Global Popular Assemblies platform should be integrated within UN processes, built through a Global South reform coalition, a multilateral pact on climate justice and UN Charter revision.
• Peace and security governance as a multiplex security framework: strengthening regional blocs should be strengthened, thereby maturing minilateral platforms into governance clusters, and formalising UN-regional compacts.
• A regenerative and multidimensional Global Financial Architecture: development should be redefined beyond debt-fueled GDP growth, thus democratising international financial institutions, creating fairer credit rating systems, and strengthening regional development banks.

Authors: Adriana Caballero, Asif Ali, Busisiwe Nandipha Nxumalo, Camila Abbondanzieri, Chanranuth Neth, Cidney Wekesi, Fatima Zohra, Jessica Correa, Jimmy Berlianto, Layla Ali, Nadine Abd El Razek, Néstor Genis, Nycolas Candido, Siposihle Bungane, Syed Arslan Ali