Global Campaign for Education and the Transnational Institute
There is a very strong narrative that argues that, given the lack of resources of our multilateral institutions and the expertise of corporations, they should sit at the decision-making tables alongside states. Multistakeholderism, the name of this phenomenon where corporations have voice and vote, most times dislocating states, especially from the Global South, is part of almost all multilateral organizations today. However, there is no regulation, nor forms of accountability of these bodies in case of violations or when their projects, financed also with public funds, simply fail.
In this context, the People’s Working Group on Multistakeholderism mapped 12 multistakeholder initiatives in the global governance of education in the chapter “Education, a Big Business for Businesses: Multistakeholderism in the Global Education Governance”, of the book The Great Takeover (2022). This unregulated and loose arrangement of (certain) states and the market, therefore, represent a form of corporate capture of multilateralism, also deepening the asymmetries between the Global North and the Global South. As the educational sector is constantly facing deficits, solutions of this type have been institutionalized in an effort to find ways to enable public policies. They have, however, put the sector at the mercy of market interests.
Ahead of the United Nations Transforming Education Summit, in September 2022, the Global Campaign for Education and the Transnational Institute are organizing the sectorial launch of The Great Takeover on the 24th of August, 2022.
There, the author Madhuresh Kumar will present his findings to be discussed by Laura Giannecchini, Vernor Muñoz and Gurumurthy Kasinathan. The round table will present the status quo of multistakeholderism in the field of Education, hoping to call attention to its risks and to mobilize civil society towards a truly democratic multilateral governance of the field.
Watch a livestream of the event here. Gurmurthy Kasinathan speaks from the timestamp at 49.00.