Harris Gleckman Associate

Our people — Associate

Harris Gleckman is a senior fellow at the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Director of Benchmark Environmental Consulting. Gleckman has a PhD in Sociology from Brandeis University.

He was a staff member of the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations, head of the NY office of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and an early member of the staff for the 2002 Monterey Conference on Financing for Development. His current areas of interests are multistakeholderism (2018 Routledge book), multistakeholderism and power relations in the North’s response to COVID (2022 TNI and FOEI report), and democratic global governance with the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability.

See Harris Gleckman's Linkedin profile.

Latest work

Multistakeholderism Is it good for developing countries?

Multistakeholderism

The preparations for the September 2024 Summit of the Future (SOTF) are well underway. In this process, the UN Secretary-General and most OECD countries argue that multistakeholderism should now be accepted as a part of global governance and multilateralism. This paper argues the opposite: multistakeholdermism undermines multilateralism and limits the role of developing countries in global governance.

Report by

Harris Gleckman

Publication date: 7 September 2023
The Three COVID crises and Multistakeholderism Impacts on the Global South
Multistakeholderism

COVID-19
This new report from the Transnational Institute and Friends of the Earth International explores the role of multistakeholderism in the COVID crises, when multistakeholder initiatives, working outside the multilateral system, acted as governing bodies. A follow-up to COVAX, a joint study published in March 2021, this report situates COVID-related multistakeholder undertakings within the overall strategy of the Global North towards the Global South.

Report by

Harris Gleckman

Publication date: 20 July 2022
How powerful pharmaceutical companies shaped the response to the pandemic Arun Kundnani in Conversation with Harris Gleckman
COVID-19

Multistakeholderism
During the pandemic, the World Health Organisation and governments took a back seat and power was centred on corporate interests. Health was viewed not as a right or a necessity, but as a product to be marketed and sold. Even in the midst of a global health emergency, companies treated the ill and the vulnerable as consumers and vaccines as commodities, setting prices and production rates that maximise profit. How has this happened and what, if any, are the alternatives?
Podcast by

Harris Gleckman

Arun Kundnani
Publication date: 23 June 2022