Multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow
Major global shocks in recent years – including the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war, and the triple planetary crisis, among others – have challenged our international institutions. Unity around our shared principles and common goals is both crucial and urgent.
The Summit of the Future is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enhance cooperation on critical challenges and address gaps in global governance, reaffirm existing commitments including to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Charter, and move towards a reinvigorated multilateral system that is better positioned to positively impact people’s lives. Building on the SDG Summit in 2023, Member States will consider ways to lay the foundations for more effective global cooperation that can deal with today’s challenges as well as new threats in the future.
Areas of Potential Action
Member States will ultimately decide the outcome of the Summit of the Future, but the Secretary-General has outlined an ambitious agenda for their consideration. These are further elaborated in the Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda Policy Briefs.
- Account for the future: practical steps to take account of the long-term impact of our decisions, fulfilling a long-standing commitment Member States have made to future generations;
- Better respond to global shocks: put in place a stronger international response playbook for complex global shocks, maximizing the use of the Secretary-General’s convening power in the form of an Emergency Platform;
- Meaningfully include young people: systematically include young people in global decision-making;
- Measure human progress more effectively: agree on metrics beyond GDP so that decisions on debt relief, concessional funding, and international cooperation take account of vulnerability, well-being, sustainability, and other vital measures of progress.
- Agree on a vision of digital technology as a motor for human progress that can deliver full benefits while minimizing potential harm;
- Commit to integrity in public information: achieve an information ecosystem (notably online) that is inclusive and safe for all, perhaps via a code of conduct;
- Reform the international financial architecture: to ensure it delivers more effectively and fairly for everyone and particularly the Global South, including through objectives that are aligned with the SDGs, debt sustainability, a global financial safety net, and more;
- Advance the peaceful and sustainable use of outer space: update norms governing the use of and behaviour in space so that it is peaceful, secure and sustainable for the benefit of all;
- Agree a new agenda for peace: update our understanding of all forms and domains of threats and adapt our toolbox to prevent and manage hostilities on land, at sea, in space, and in cyberspace;
- Transform education: achieve a fundamental shift in how education is seen and treated including in relation to the purpose of education; the learning environment; the teaching profession; harnessing digital transformation; investing in education; and multilateral support for quality education for all.
- UN 2.0: adapt basic UN practices on data, communications, innovation, strategic foresight, performance and results, and more, so it is better positioned to support all the above and face the challenges of tomorrow.
Member States may also elect to include in the Pact ideas and proposals from the forthcoming report of the Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.