Qahir Dhanani

It is time to rethink, to reevaluate, to recalibrate how we collaborate on a global scale.

And in my humble opinion, this starts with rebuilding trust.

How?

Allow me to offer something rather provocative.

We must stop insisting on inviting everybody to the meeting.

Sounds a bit hard, I know.

But hear me out.

Imagine trying to get your slide deck together or your project budget or your memo written with 200 of your most well-meaning colleagues working with you on it.

Sounds pretty difficult, right?

which is why trying to negotiate anything with 193 countries at the outset and trying to achieve global consensus on that issue will deliver one thing for certain, if anything at all, and that is the least objectionable outcome.

But to rebuild trust and take on the most difficult challenges of our time

we cannot settle for the least objectionable outcome.

We need the most ambitious, the bold, the transformative outcomes.

So let's take an alternative, an augmented path forward, one that is rooted in the art of diplomacy, one that has served us for over a century, but one which we seem to have lost.

Let's unleash coalitions of the willing to show what 21st century multilateralism and cooperation can and should look like.

I define coalitions of the willing as small, dynamic groups of like-minded and sometimes not so like-minded actors coming together.

They can be some combination of countries from the South and the North, the East and the West,

civil society organizations, academic institutions, religious organizations, and, and this is important, businesses.

They come together with shared purpose to solve a problem larger than themselves, a problem that requires genuine collaboration and co-creation to solve, problems that require a committed group to act first and to act boldly.

The coalition takes on the risk.