The inspiring piece Survival or Renewal?  (September 2025) makes a bold case: the UN cannot limit itself to technical or cosmetic reforms, as those only prolong inertia. To survive in a world of overlapping crises, it needs nothing less than a cultural and political metamorphosis. The metaphor is vivid: like a caterpillar that dissolves before becoming a butterfly, the system must allow new “imaginal cells” to emerge—building a different model rather than yet another patch on the bureaucracy.

Core ideas and originality

Without a radical shift of model—anchored in collaboration, distributed power, shared purpose, and internal renewal—the system risks remaining trapped in “bureaucratic survival” and losing its relevance.

The paper highlights four bold shifts:

1. From fiefdoms to shared purpose: moving beyond institutional silos toward teams built around missions and results.
2. From hierarchy to distributed power: giving real voice to youth, frontline staff, and communities—not just Member States and senior officials.
3. From fragmentation to ecosystem: interoperable data, shared platforms, and connected teams.
4. From draining bureaucracy to renewal: trust, care, and continuous learning as conditions for change.

The innovation lies not just in the list, but in the cultural turn: cultivating conditions—trust, listening, care—so that collaboration stops being heroic and starts being routine.

Possible drivers

The document points to seeds already in motion: communities like Young UN or UNLOCK, pooled funds such as the SDG Fund or Peacebuilding Fund, and even the budgetary crisis itself, which may force shifts where resistance has long prevailed.

Risks of wishful thinking

The Achilles’ heel remains unchanged: without moving the levers of financing, incentives, and power, the butterfly risks being trapped in its cocoon.

• If donors keep prioritizing logos over collective impact.
• If internal incentives continue to reward control and individual visibility more than collaboration.
• If power stays concentrated in elites of Organisations or Member State capitals—while local participation remains largely rhetorical.

Challenges and open questions

Here lies a central challenge: Survival or Renewal? , like other initiatives (including  UN80), could often emerge in a top-down manner, wrapped in a narrative of participation that too often confirms the views of the elites. The risk is ending up with yet another “reform” that reshuffles chairs but does not bring the UN any closer to real problems or to genuine accountability.

The challenge is to blend the narrative from above with parallel, bottom-up and experimental efforts: country labs, local consortia, flexible funds, distributed decision-making. Real transformation will only happen when these insurgent innovations are embedded into the UN’s accountability system—so that collaboration moves from inspiring narrative to rewarded practice.

Questions still on the table (echoing my earlier post Collaborate or Die of PowerPointism):

• What incentives will truly reward everyday collaboration?
• How do we persuade donors to fund collective impact rather than branding?
• What mechanisms can shift power closer to those on the ground?
• How can imaginal cells be shielded from the bureaucracy’s immune system?

Conclusion

The value of Survival or Renewal?  is in framing the UN’s crisis not as a technical problem, but as a cultural and political opportunity. The task now is to move from epic narrative to practical mechanics: fewer metaphors, more incentives, concrete structures, and real accountability. And above all, to recognize that transformation will not come from brilliant documents alone—but from joint responsibility “from above” and “from below,” inside and outside the system.

Otherwise, the butterfly risks never leaving the PowerPoint.

👉 Full document: Survival or Renewal? (2025)

👉 Related post: Collaborate or Die (of PowerPointism)