This UN handout photo shows UN Secretary-General António Guterres as he addresses the general debate of the General Assembly's seventy-fifth session on September 22, 2020 at the UN in New York. (ESKINDER DEBEBE / UNITED NATIONS / AFP)

UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for global governance after COVID-19 that features solidarity and multilateralism.

"This pandemic is a wake-up call for even more catastrophic challenges that may arise, starting with the climate crisis. If we meet these with the same disunity and disarray we have seen this year, I fear the worst," he told a summit-level Security Council debate on "global governance after COVID-19."

This pandemic is a wake-up call for even more catastrophic challenges that may arise, starting with the climate crisis. If we meet these with the same disunity and disarray we have seen this year, I fear the worst. 

Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general

"We need global governance that is resolute, coordinated, flexible, and ready to react to the full range of challenges we face," he said.

Guterres added that the world is no longer bipolar or unipolar, and is instead moving toward multipolarity.

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"We experienced fragmentation and polarization without effective mechanisms of multilateral governance 100 years ago. The result was the First World War, followed by the second (World War)," he said.

COVID-19 is a warning that must spur the world to action, he said. "We have no choice. Either we come together in global institutions that are fit for purpose, or we will be crushed by divisiveness and chaos."

He also asked for multilateralism for post-COVID global governance to work.

"Reformed global governance is about approaches, and institutions, which must be reformed and strengthened," he said. "We need more and better multilateralism that works effectively and delivers for the people we serve."

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"We need more and better global governance based on national sovereignty and expressed through our shared ideals, eloquently expressed in the United Nations Charter," he added.

COVID-19 has illustrated beyond dispute the gaps in the multilateral system. As countries go in different directions, the virus goes in every direction, he said.

A rational and equitable approach to vaccination would reduce preventable deaths by prioritizing front-line workers and the most vulnerable, but the world has struggled to mobilize the resources needed to ensure a vaccine as a global public good, available and affordable to all, he noted.

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"We urgently need multilateral institutions that can act decisively, based on global consent, for the global good. And we need multilateral institutions that are fair, with better representation of the developing world, so that all have a proportional voice at the global table," said Guterres.