Is inviting everyone to the meeting holding back global cooperation? | Qahir Dhanani

Summary

Podcast Summary:

TED Talks Daily – "Is inviting everyone to the meeting holding back global cooperation?" | Qahir Dhanani
Date: January 8, 2026
Host: Elise Hu
Guest: Qahir Dhanani, International Affairs and Development Expert

---

Episode Overview

In this compelling TED Talk, Qahir Dhanani challenges conventional ideas around global cooperation. With an urgent tone and personal clarity, he argues that the traditional approach of including every nation and actor in international negotiations is slowing progress and diluting ambition. Instead, he advocates for "coalitions of the willing"—smaller, focused groups that drive innovation and provide blueprints for broader change. Dhanani explores how rebuilding trust, recalibrating multilateralism, and learning from past successes can help us tackle today's pressing global challenges.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Magic of Global Cooperation (03:17–05:40)

• Global Standards:
  Dhanani opens by revealing how everyday conveniences, like the machine-readable zone on passports, are the result of international cooperation and standardization.
  • Quote:
    “Those two lines are magic, the product of international cooperation. Because without them, you wouldn't be able to get on that plane... This is international cooperation at its best.” — Qahir Dhanani (03:21)
• Historic Achievements:
  • Formation of the International Telegraph Union (ITU) over 160 years ago, laying the groundwork for global communication—amazing continuity into the digital era.
  • Multilateral agreements underpin key systems: time zones, traffic signals, and more.

The Crisis of Trust and Institutional Stagnation (05:40–07:38)

• Eroding Confidence:
  Dhanani notes the widespread crisis of faith in global institutions, describing the perception of international organizations as “a mesh of red tape...endless bureaucracy or political posturing.” (06:03)
• Obsolescence of Institutions:
  The frameworks crafted in the aftermath of WWII struggle to remain effective in today's rapidly evolving world.

The Dilemma: Is International Cooperation Worth It? (07:39–08:17)

• A Firm Stance:
  Dhanani insists that, despite skepticism, global cooperation is essential—urging listeners to “take another look.”
  • Quote:
    “I implore you take another look. And I give you fair warning that staying in the arena and giving multilateralism another go means one thing for sure. We cannot continue with business as usual.” — Qahir Dhanani (07:51)

Provocative Solution: Rethinking Inclusivity (08:18–09:34)

• Stop Inviting Everyone:
  He boldly suggests moving away from the impulse to bring every stakeholder into initial negotiations, humorously likening it to working on a memo with 200 colleagues and expecting progress.
  • Quote:
    “We must stop insisting on inviting everybody to the meeting. Sounds a bit hard, I know, but hear me out.” — Qahir Dhanani (08:32)
• Resulting Compromises:
  Negotiation with 193 countries leads to only “the least objectionable outcome”—not the bold solutions needed.

A New Model: “Coalitions of the Willing” (09:35–11:50)

• Definition and Historical Precedent:
  Dhanani defines coalitions of the willing as “small dynamic groups of like-minded and sometimes not-so-like-minded actors” (09:51).
  • Actors span countries, businesses, civil society, and more.
  • They set ambitious goals, take risks, and build models others can follow.
  • Memorable Example: Uniform credit card standards developed by a few companies, then adopted globally.
• Contrast with Current Multilateralism:
  Contrasts efficient, focused coalition work with the inertia of universal consensus-seeking.
  • Quote:
    “We've just forgotten... this is how we've done diplomacy for decades.” — Qahir Dhanani (10:41)

Case Study: The LEAF Coalition (11:51–12:43)

• The Power of Small Groups:
  The Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) coalition began with a handful of countries, corporations, and civil society actors.
  • Took bold action on deforestation and biodiversity without waiting for global consensus.
  • Resulted in billions committed and growing participation.
  • Quote:
    “They didn't wait for 200 countries to negotiate the last clause of a treaty. They acted... and now everyone is rushing in to join that coalition.” — Qahir Dhanani (12:16)

The Choice Ahead (12:44–13:11)

• Call to Action:
  Dhanani closes by urging listeners to “stay together and take this new path forward” with hope and determination.
  • Quote:
    “We have a choice: Should we stay together and take this new path forward, or should we walk away? I hope we stay together.” — Qahir Dhanani (13:07)

---

Memorable Quotes and Moments

• On the Machine Readable Zone:
  “Those two lines are magic, the product of international cooperation.” — Qahir Dhanani (03:21)
• On Institutional Trust:
  “Many think about these organizations and they see a mesh of red tape or they see endless bureaucracy or political posturing.” — Qahir Dhanani (06:03)
• On the Least Objectionable Outcome:
  “Trying to negotiate anything with 193 countries... will deliver one thing for certain, if anything at all. And that is the least objectionable outcome.” — Qahir Dhanani (08:59)
• On Coalitions of the Willing:
  “The coalition takes on the risk. It serves itself up as the guinea pig. It proves the model. It makes it easy for others to join in and it pushes the snowball down the mountain.” — Qahir Dhanani (10:14)
• On Choosing the Future of Cooperation:
  “We have a choice: Should we stay together and take this new path forward, or should we walk away? I hope we stay together.” — Qahir Dhanani (13:07)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:17] Introduction to the passport and the importance of standardization
• [05:40] Examples of international cooperation in infrastructure and daily life
• [06:03] Crisis of trust in international organizations
• [07:39] Is international cooperation worth it? Dhanani’s conviction
• [08:18] Argument against radical inclusivity in negotiations
• [09:35] Introduction and advocacy for “coalitions of the willing”
• [10:41] Credit card standardization story and lessons for today
• [11:51] LEAF coalition example—the new model in action
• [12:44] Choice and closing call to action

---

Conclusion

Qahir Dhanani’s talk is a passionate plea to move beyond outdated models of global negotiation. By focusing on nimble, motivated partnerships—coalitions of the willing—he believes global cooperation can become more impactful, regaining trust and driving bold solutions for urgent challenges. The message is clear: it’s time to recalibrate how we work together, drawing inspiration from both history and present-day experiments in cooperation.

---

Transcript

[Spectrum Business Announcer]

You have the vision for your business, you have the plan, and you just got handed a huge opportunity. But is your business connectivity reliable enough to make a move? Spectrum Business delivers fast, reliable Internet, phone, TV and mobile services so you're always connected when it matters most. Get connectivity packages built for your business with savings that keep your budget in check and with fast, reliable Internet and 100% US based customer support, you'll stay connected and and ready to bring your vision to life. Learn [e-mail] Business.

[Elise Hu]

This episode is brought.

[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

To you by Bombas. As we move into 2026, I'm thinking about comfort differently. Not just physical comfort, but the kind that helps you show up fully, whether that's for a morning run, a long day of meetings, or simply being present at home. Bombas makes that possible with their sport specific socks engineered for everything from running to hiking. They've also created incredibly comfortable footwear like their cloud like Sunday slippers and the lightweight Friday sandal plus base layers that actually feel good all day long. What makes this even better? For every item purchased, Bombas donates an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. Over 150 million donations and counting. Head over to bombas.com TTD and use code TTD for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M T B A S.com TTD code TTD at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Butcherbox. You know that moment when dinner time hits and you open the fridge to question marks? I've been there. That's why I am excited to receive my butcher box. No more last minute grocery store scrambles or trying to figure out what mystery meat has been sitting in my freezer. That's actually a true story. There's a lot of mystery meat in my freezer. For nearly a decade, Butcherbox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic free, hormone free and independently verified. It's a cleaner, more trustworthy version of what you'd find at the grocery store, delivered right to your door. As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free steak in every box for a year, plus $20 off your first box when you go to ButcherBox.com TTD that's right, your choice of filet mignon or New York strip in every box for an entire year plus $20 off your first box and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com TTD don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you.

[Elise Hu]

You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. We are facing a crisis of trust in the very institutions and systems that.

[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

Built our modern world.

[Elise Hu]

In this talk, international affairs and development expert Kahir Dhanani explores why the of.

[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

Getting every nation into the negotiation room.

[Elise Hu]

No longer works and asks us to reconsider what global cooperation looks like and why it matters that we rebuild it.

[Kahir Dhanani]

The next time you take an international trip, do me a favor. Take a look at your passport. On the COVID there's your country's coat of arms. And then you open it and there's your photograph, the best one you've ever taken. Right on that page. There's two lines at the bottom, letters and numbers. That's called the machine readable zone. Those two lines are magic, the product of international cooperation. Because without them, you wouldn't be able to get on that plane. You wouldn't be able to cross immigration, you wouldn't be able to travel the world, see your family. Now, what I find fascinating is that those two lines came about in 1980 when the International Civil Aviation Organization set about standardizing passports. At the beginning, only three countries adopted the standard. Today, just about every single country has that standard. This is international cooperation at its best. And it doesn't stop there. Did you know that 160 years ago, 20 countries came together to lay the foundations of our global telecommunications networks? They founded something called the International Telegraph Union or the itu. It's still active today, although it's moved on from the telegraph. Even in times of conflict, global cooperation continues. In the midst of the war in the Ukraine, representatives from the United States, China, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and Russia were sitting in the same room at the ITU, continuing to negotiate things like Internet protocols or global digital governance. Did you know that time zones exist because of a multilateral agreement? Or that green means go because of a multilateral agreement? Our lives are made better when countries collaborate. It is the infrastructure of the modern world and we can't live without it. But today we're facing a crisis of trust, trust in the international system. I see this every day because I work with international organizations and their leaders, trying to make them more effective. And I'll be the first to admit that talking about multilateralism and effectiveness in the same sentence sounds a bit complicated. Many think about these organizations and they see a mesh of red tape or they see endless bureaucracy or political posturing. They wonder, is there any tangible impact? It's making people lose faith in international organizations. I get it. In our constantly changing world, is it any surprise that the institutions crafted around the geopolitical realities of the end of the Second World War 80 years ago that those organizations are struggling to keep up? It's making us. Is international cooperation even worth it? Well, I'm here to persuade you that it absolutely is. I implore you take another look. And I give you fair warning that staying in the arena and giving multilateralism another go means one thing for sure. We cannot continue with business as usual. 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 willingness 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. It serves itself up as the guinea pig. It proves the model. It makes it easy for others to join in and it pushes the snowball down the mountain. This is how we've done diplomacy for decades. We've just forgotten. I love this example from the 1950s when banks started issuing credit cards. There was one problem. Some cards were small, some cards were large, some were made of paper, some of plastic. There was no interoperability. So a few of them came together. American Express, Diners Club and a few others, they came together and they adopted a uniform standard for a credit card. So what you have in your wallet today is standard. It has your name and a number on the front and a metallic strip on the back. And then they worked with countries to enshrine this in the International Standards Organization. So today, when you go to a restaurant and you tap your card or you go to an ATM machine and you take out some cash, if people still do that, you trust that it's going to work. But you don't attribute that to multilateralism or to the ISO or to a coalition of the willing. But that's how it started. Imagine we had to renegotiate or start afresh negotiating what a standard credit card looks like today. What would that look like, Insisting on inviting everybody to the meeting? Well, the idea would be put to a committee. The committee would run consultations, endless consultations with hundreds of actors, those that are super relevant and those that are less relevant. Then it would craft a convention or a resolution or a compact and put that forward for 193 countries to negotiate. There would be co facilitators appointed to run this process. Their objective would be to reach global consensus among 193 countries. And the result? The least objectionable outcome. Which is why today we need to start with coalitions of the willing to make things work ambitiously for the future. I would be so energized to see the United nations or other multilateral organizations invite coalitions of the willing to take on some of our most difficult challenges. AI governance, migration, food security. It's not happening at the rate we want it to happen, but it is actually happening. And I have a lot of hope. One example that gives me a lot of hope is the LEAF coalition, the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance coalition. It started with a handful of countries that were donors, a handful of countries that had forests, a handful of corporations, and a handful of civil society organizations. They all came together and they sat at a table, a small table, and they tried to figure out, what do we do about deforestation, how do we protect biodiversity? And so they didn't wait for 200 countries to negotiate the last clause of a treaty. They acted. They put billions of dollars on the line and they created a new market for protecting nature. And now everyone is rushing in to join that coalition. This is what 21st century multilateralism and international cooperation can and should be. And so we have a choice should we stay together and take this new path forward, or should we walk away? I hope we stay together. Thank you.

[Elise Hu]

That was Kahir Dhanani speaking at TED at BCG in Dubai in 2025. If you're curious about Ted's cur out [e-mail] curation guidelines and that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact checked by the TED Research team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little and Tansika Songmar Nivong. This episode was mixed by Christopher Faizy Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balaurazo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feedback. Thanks for listening.

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Why Choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed?

[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

Can I make my site softer?

[Spectrum Business Announcer]

Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Sleep Number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting J.D. power ranks sleep number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now the more you buy, the more you save on beds, bases and more limited for J.D. power 2025 award information, visit J.D. power.com awards. Check it out at the Sleep Number Store or SleepMember.com today.

[Adam Grant]

Hey, it's Adam Grant from Ted's podcast Work Life, and this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 companies use the ServiceNow AI platform. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data workflows and AI connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters Most. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for [e-mail] this message is brought to.

[Capital One Announcer]

You by the Capital One venture X card venturex offers the premium benefits you expect, like a $300 annual capital one travel cred credit for less than you expect. Elevate your earn with unlimited double miles on every purchase, bringing you one step closer to your next dream destination. Plus, enjoy access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. The Capital One Venture X Card what's in your wallet? Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capitalone.com for details.