Everything you need to know about the Summit of the Future

Progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals has stagnated. This month’s summit aims to forge a new global consensus on how to secure our future.

With just six years left to meet the deadline for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world is not on track to meet those targets.

The COVID-19 pandemic, escalating conflicts and growing climate chaos have severely hindered progress.

To get back on track, the world needs massive investment in sustainable development, as well as accelerated action in several critical areas, including climate change, peace and security, and inequalities among and between countries, as the recent Sustainable Development Report 2024 found.

To address these acute challenges, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for a Summit of the Future at the United Nations in New York on September 22-23.

With the theme “Multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow”, the summit will bring together UN member states and agencies, academic institutions, non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, the private sector and young people.

Humanity is facing a set of unprecedented challenges that can only be solved through global cooperation, also known as multilateralism. During the summit, attendees will collectively forge a new global consensus on what our future should look like — and what we can do today to secure it.

The summit will focus on five core areas: sustainable development and financing; international peace and security; fostering digital cooperation and the control of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence; the empowerment of young people and future generations; and reform of the UN architecture.

Within sustainable development, the core challenge is securing global financing. After all, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will require sizeable public investment.

With low-income and lower-middle-income countries, in particular, lacking the access to financing they need to achieve those goals, the global system will need to work out a way to provide access to long-term, low-cost financing to these countries. 

To achieve global peace, one of the core challenges today is great-power competition, including between the US, Russia and China. The world will need to move toward a UN-led system in which this great-power competition is governed and restrained by the UN Charter rather than by militarism and power politics. 

To support this goal, countries must be truly committed to global cooperation — and a new index on UN-based multilateralism could play a part in monitoring just how committed to that goal UN member states are. 

For digital cooperation and new technologies, the main challenge is to ensure that they are transparently and responsibly governed.

For youth and future generations, high-quality education plays an essential role in their empowerment and progress. The world will need to work toward a new global financial arrangement to ensure that every child, even in the poorest countries, is given the opportunity for a decent education. 

All of these objectives cannot be achieved without reform of the UN system, ensuring that more power is given to UN institutions and ensuring that they are more representative. To make the UN as representative as possible, boosting diverse representation, including women’s representation, at leadership levels is essential. 

Furthermore, approaching decarbonisation and other sustainability efforts with a gender lens and boosting women’s representation in this area is critical for making progress on all of the above challenges.

Published to coincide with the UN’s Summit of the Future, this special report, a collaboration between 360info and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), tables solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues.

Perspectives

The nations most (and least) likely to support UN principles
Guillaume Lafortune, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)
The US, Russia, Israel and Iran are among the powerful countries that show less support for UN-based global cooperation, a new index reveals.

Reforms that could renew the UN’s purpose and power
David Donoghue, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
The Summit of the Future gives the UN a chance to re-assess, possibly paving the way for reforms to be more representative and more effective.

Women leading the green charge
Yuen Yoong Leong, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Sunway University
Inspiring women are driving sustainable solutions and empowering communities, showcasing their potential to shape a more equitable and sustainable future.

Fix the child illiteracy crisis to ensure a sustainable future
Patrick Paul Walsh, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)
Education is a key to putting the world on a pathway that generates more economic activity, equity, and sustainability for all.

Even the UN is struggling to meet its gender parity goals
Wong Chin Huat, SDSN Kuala Lumpur office, Sunway University
The UN’s leadership still lacks gender balance, with only a fraction of member states appointing female diplomats despite global targets for representation.

Financial reform can bring more money for SDG implementation
Isabella Massa, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) in Paris
The world is at a crossroads as progress on SDGs falters. A drastic but necessary overhaul of the credit rating system could help.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.

Editors Note: In the story “Summit of the Future” sent at: 19/09/2024 14:10.

This is a corrected repeat.