Group of Friends and Like-Minded Group Mechanics
How Groups of Friends, Core Groups, and Like-Minded Groups shape UN drafting, mandates, and negotiating coalitions across the Council, GA, and ECOSOC.
Definitions and Typology
The United Nations operates through formal organs but is steered by informal coalitions. Three configurations recur. A Group of Friends is a small, self-selected coalition of states — typically 4 to 10 — that shepherds a country file, thematic issue, or peace process. A Core Group is a tighter drafting cell, usually 3 to 6 states, that holds the pen on a specific Security Council or General Assembly text. A Like-Minded Group (LMG) is a broader, often standing political bloc — sometimes 20 to 130 states — organized around a shared normative position (development financing, sovereignty doctrine, human rights pushback, disarmament).
None of these arrangements appears in the UN Charter or in the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council (S/96/Rev.7) or the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly (A/520/Rev.19). They are extra-statutory, but they determine which drafts reach the chamber and in what form.
Historical Origins
The modern Group of Friends model crystallized with the Friends of the Secretary-General on Haiti (1993–94), comprising Argentina, Canada, France, the United States, and Venezuela, which underwrote the negotiations producing Security Council Resolution 940 (1994) authorizing the multinational force. The Friends of El Salvador (Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Venezuela) — convened in 1990 — had earlier accompanied the Chapultepec process and is the template most often cited by UN mediation doctrine, including the 2012 Guidance for Effective Mediation (A/66/811).
Other durable Friends groups include the Friends of the Western Sahara (the so-called 'Group of Friends' on MINURSO: France, Russia, Spain, the UK, the US), the Friends of Yemen (founded 2010), the Friends of the Great Lakes, and the Friends of Mediation co-chaired since 2010 by Turkey and Finland, which produced GA Resolutions 65/283, 66/291, and 68/303.
How Penholding Interacts with Friends Groups
Since the Note by the President S/2017/507 codified Council working methods, penholding has been transparent: one or two permanent members typically draft on each file (UK on Yemen, Somalia, Sudan; France on the Sahel, Lebanon, Haiti; US on DPRK, Afghanistan, Syria humanitarian). A Friends group surrounds the penholder, supplying political cover, capital outreach, and amendments. The penholder is not obliged to consult the Friends, but ignoring them produces visible fractures — as occurred during the 2014 negotiations on Resolution 2139 (Syria humanitarian access), where the broader humanitarian Friends pushed back against an initial P3 draft.
Like-Minded Groups as Negotiating Blocs
The largest standing LMGs operate primarily in the General Assembly and ECOSOC. The Group of 77 and China (134 members as of 2024), chaired in 2024 by Uganda, coordinates Southern positions on the Second Committee, financing for development, and the 2030 Agenda follow-up. The Non-Aligned Movement (120 members, chaired by Uganda 2024–27) drives First Committee disarmament texts and Fourth Committee decolonization items.
Narrower LMGs include the Like-Minded Group of Developing Countries (Algeria, Bolivia, China, Cuba, DPRK, Egypt, Iran, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe), which coordinates sovereignty-protective amendments in the Third Committee; the Group of Friends of R2P (co-chaired by the Netherlands and Rwanda); the ACT Group (Accountability, Coherence, Transparency, 27 states, chaired by Switzerland), which produced the December 2015 Code of Conduct on mass-atrocity vetoes (now 130+ signatories); and the Small Five (S-5) initiative on Council reform, dissolved in 2012 after the withdrawal of draft A/66/L.42/Rev.2.