Nearly 70 years after the United Nations charter was signed, the UN Chef de Cabinet Susana Malcorra said it is time for the UN to develop more long-term plans instead of fighting "fires" across the globe.

"Coming from the private sector, I've always thought the private sector was very short-term oriented and did not have enough strategic horizon," Chef de Cabinet Susana Malcorra said at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Monday.

"I have learned now that there is a much bigger strategic horizon than the one we (the UN) have," she said, "going to fire after fire, and being pulled and pushed by the reality of today, and reacting to it".

Prior to joining the secretariat, Malcorra served as chief operating officer and deputy executive director of the World Food Program (WFP). Before that, she worked for 25 years in the private sector, including leadership roles at IBM and Telecom Argentina.

The UN currently has 193 member states and takes a leadership role in coordinating those states to address global challenges.

"Being able to have an agenda that is developed over a period of time, and then has the common understanding by member states, to me is fundamental," she said.

Malcorra said that requires the trust and effort from widely diverse nations.

Malcorra believes that on the way toward reforming the General Assembly in order to achieve better global cooperation, "the biggest contributors in a positive or negative way will be in the private sector".

"Unless we enlarge, in a very concrete manner, the commitment of the private sector, and make sure there is alignment between what the private sector does, what policies are established by governments, and what all of this is done at an international level, this will not materialize," she said.

She also noted that the UN is gradually opening up to more stakeholders and trying to work with more groups from the private sector.

Malcorra said that China is a key player in an increasingly complex international community. She told China Daily that China becoming increasingly engaged in multilateral systems is essential for global cooperation, "and China is more and more getting into it".

Liu Jingyang in Washington contributedto this story.