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Originally published on CEPS.eu.  

May was not a bad month for democracy. After India’s 900 million eligible voters were invited to cast their ballot, up to 430 million across 28 EU member states had a chance to go the polls in the world’s second biggest democratic elections: those for the European Parliament.

After a tumultuous 2016, the world holds its breath for what the coming year may bring. Angry populism is on the march. Great power relations are tense. The Middle East has imploded. Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald J. Trump proposes to upend U.S. foreign policy in areas from trade to climate, alliances to nonproliferation, terrorism to human rights. In a world in disarray, can multilateralism deliver?

The Pacific Islands are of intensifying geostrategic interest. Sitting between Asia and the Americas, the region is one of the world’s most dependent on aid. It acts as the custodian of large swaths of the world’s fisheries and makes up a significant voting bloc at the United Nations, giving the region more geostrategic relevance than its modestly sized population might suggest. With China expanding its foreign aid programs in the region, the geopolitical competition for influence among China and other international and regional powers appears to be heating up.

Few issues arouse such strong passions as immigration, where concrete economic and social challenges overlap with the fundamental concept of national identity. It is thus not surprising that Europe is having difficulty in coming to grips with the current refugee crisis.

Global attention in 2014 will at times focus less on high politics than on high sport. All eyes will be on the Sochi Winter Olympics (February 7-23) and Brazil's World Cup (June 12-July 13).

But beyond watching triple Salchows and bouncing brazucas, the world has a lot on its plate. Here's a preview of the multilateral calendar for the coming year:

Japan is playing a leading role this year at a number of important multilateral forums. It will join the United Nations Security Council as a nonpermanent member in July, chair the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Kenya in August, and chair the Japan-China-South Korea Trilateral Summit in the fall.

As the world’s premier forum for global economic governance, the Group of Twenty (G20) achieved widely acclaimed progress in containing the 2008 global financial crisis. However, as the G20 shifts its focus from crisis response to long-term economic governance, it also faces multifaceted challenges, and doubts over its effectiveness have grown. With all eyes on the G20 summit in Hangzhou this September, addressing these challenges and tapping into the G20’s potential has been high on China’s agenda.

Mounting Challenges for G20

The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed global summits and undermined the ability of leaders to act on issues that imperil the safety, security, and well-being of every nation’s citizens, including climate change, biodiversity loss, intellectual property rules, and nuclear risks. The unprecedented joint health and economic crisis is also exacerbating divisions between developing and developed countries amid an increasingly polarized U.S.-China rivalry and escalating Russian aggression.

Although overall health has improved in many countries, health care today is still inadequate, unevenly distributed, and expensive, particularly in the world’s poorest nations. This is catastrophic for those who do not have access to essential medicines and treatment and can pose considerable development risks.

It remains difficult to predict who will be the eventual winner of France’s upcoming presidential elections, with the first round to take place April 23 and a runoff between the top two candidates set for May 7. Polls indicate that any of the four primary presidential candidates could emerge victorious: the traditional right’s François Fillon, the new centrist Emmanuel Macron, the far right’s Marine Le Pen, and the far left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon.