What is the Summit of the Future?
The Summit is a high-level event, bringing world leaders together to forge a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future.
Effective global cooperation is increasingly critical to our survival but difficult to achieve in an atmosphere of mistrust, using outdated structures that no longer reflect today’s political and economic realities.
This once-in-a-generation opportunity serves as a moment to mend eroded trust and demonstrate that international cooperation can effectively achieve agreed goals and tackle emerging threats and opportunities.
In September 2024, world leaders will convene at the United Nations to adopt the Pact for the Future, which will include a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations as annexes.
Summit of the Future Explainer: Is there a better way to shape our world? And how can we achieve a fairer future, in the face of so much global upheaval and conflict?
Towards a Pact for the Future
The aim of the Summit of the Future is twofold:
- accelerate efforts to meet our existing international commitments, and
- take concrete steps to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities.
This will be achieved through an action-oriented outcome document called the Pact for the Future.
The Pact will be negotiated, and endorsed by countries in the lead-up to and during the Summit in September 2024.
The result will be a world – and an international system – that is better prepared to manage the challenges we face now and in the future, for the sake of all humanity and for future generations.
Why the Summit matters
The world is not on track to meet the goals we have already set for ourselves. Nor are we effectively rising to new challenges or opportunities.
The speed and complexity of developments have outpaced our systems for cooperating and coping.
The benefits and opportunities of progress are spread unevenly, with the majority of people left behind.
The risks and threats are also unevenly felt, disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable.
Extreme poverty and hunger are on the march. Global emissions are at their highest levels in human history, as are levels of human displacement. Threats such as climate, conflict, food security, weapons of mass destruction, pandemics and health crises, and the risks associated with new technologies, are growing.
Multilateral governance, designed in simpler, slower times, is not adequate to today’s complex, interconnected, rapidly changing world.
The Summit is an opportunity to put ourselves on a better path.
Where did the Summit come from?
The proposal for a Summit of the Future originated in the Our Common Agenda report. The report was a response by the UN Secretary-General to a call from Member States for ideas on how better to respond to current and future challenges.
The Common Agenda report called for a renewal of trust and solidarity at all levels – between peoples, countries and generations. It made the case for a fundamental rethink of our political, economic and social systems so that they deliver more fairly and effectively for everyone. It also recommended a corresponding renewal of the multilateral system, with the Summit of the Future as a defining moment to agree on the most critical improvements necessary.
Member States agreed to hold the Summit in September 2024. They also agreed that the Summit would have an outcome – a Pact for the Future.
They articulated the overarching purpose of the Summit, and the Pact:
- to reaffirm the UN Charter,
- to reinvigorate multilateralism,
- to boost implementation of existing commitments,
- to agree on solutions to new challenges, and
- to restore trust.
How will the Summit help deliver the SDGs?
Sustainable Development Goals
The Sustainable Development Goals are badly off track.
The Summit of the Future will create the conditions in which implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can more readily be achieved.
It will do so by building on the outcome of the 2023 SDG Summit.
In addition, it will result in improvements to international cooperation that enable us to solve problems together.
We will be able to harness new opportunities for the benefit of all, not just the few, and manage the risks more effectively.
Every proposal offered by the Secretary-General for consideration at the Summit of the Future will have demonstrable impacts on achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The road to the Summit
2015 — "2030 Agenda"
The 2030 Agenda is agreed by UN Member States as a plan of action for people, planet, prosperity and peace outlined through 17 Sustainable Development Goals and related targets.
2020 — "UN75 Declaration"
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Member States issued the that included 12 overarching commitments along with a request that the Secretary-General report back to the General Assembly with recommendations to address current and future challenges.
2021 — "Our Common Agenda"
The Secretary-General responded to this call with Our Common Agenda, a wake-up call to speed up implementation of the SDGs as well as recommendations to address strategic gaps in global governance arrangements. It called for a Summit of the Future to forge a new global consensus on multilateral solutions to current and future problems.
2022-2024 — "Summit of the Future"
Having welcomed the submission of Our Common Agenda, the General Assembly passed a to hold the Summit of the Future on 22-23 September 2024. Practical consultations on preparations for the Summit begin in February 2023 and a Ministerial meeting will take place this year. The Summit of the Future will build upon the SDG Summit and breathe new life into the multilateral system so that it can deliver on the promises of the United Nations Charter and the 2030 Agenda.
2023 — "SDG Summit"
Marking the mid-point of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, the SDG Summit in 2023 will be convened on 18-19 September 2023 to “mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals”.
2024 — "Pact for the Future"
An action-oriented Pact for the Future will be endorsed by Heads of State/Government at the Summit, showcasing global solidarity for current and future generations.