Can the UN learn how to lose?

The United Nations was largely built for growth: expanding mandates, programmes, partnerships and ambitions.  But what happens when the money, political support and institutional space begin to contract?

Lessons from loss: an opinion on multilateral transition after 20 years inside UNAIDS draws on my experience working across six UN organizations, particularly with the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), to explore a question facing much of the multilateral system: how can institutions become better at managing decline and transformation?

The paper argues that organizations often struggle not simply with financial contraction, but with loss itself – of resources, status, identity, colleagues and assumptions about the future. Drawing on organizational theory, experiences from UNAIDS and other international organizations, and ideas developed in my book The Punctuation of Loss, I explore what grief and punctuation might unexpectedly teach us about institutional change.

The central argument is one of agency. Organizations cannot control every loss they encounter, but they can decide how they respond. Sometimes success means becoming smaller, transferring functions, merging or even ending well.

Five practical recommendations suggest how organizations can plan for contraction before crisis makes the choices for them.

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Published in September 2026 by Intermundia Libri

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