The Un Summit Of The Future What To Expect

Leo Migdal

-Dec 3, 2025, 9:10 AM

the un summit of the future what to expect

The 2024 Summit of the Future. What to Expect Now and After The Summit of the Future (SOTF) was proposed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to forge a new consensus on managing current interdependence and improving international collaboration. Scheduled for September 22-23 this year in New York City, the Summit aims to address critical global challenges and secure a viable future for coming generations. Despite its ambitious objectives, the SOTF will occur against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical tensions and a challenging environment for international agreements. This contrasts with the plethora of innovative ideas and debate emerging from civil society on reforming multilateralism.

While expectations for concrete outcomes have been tempered, the SOTF provides a valuable opportunity to showcase fresh thinking on global governance reform. This paper argues that, rather than a disappointing finish line, the SOTF could serve as a starting point for charting a way forward. It has the potential to rally attention and political will to upgrade 20th-century international governance structures for 21st-century realities. The significance of the Summit of the Future is a somewhat tricky to convey. On the one hand, it is hard to overstate how much of a big deal the Summit of the Future for the United Nations, which bills it as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.” On the other... Not yet, at least.

The Summit of the Future is a two day confab that kicks off the 79th United Nations General Assembly on September 22 and 23. It is truly an occasion to revitalize the UN in a time of great global turmoil and restore trust in international cooperation as a means of solving common global challenges. That may sound impractically idealistic, but the Summit itself is the culmination of years of discussions, negotiations and diplomacy around concrete policies and reforms intended to make the UN more responsive to future global... Today’s episode of our To Save Us From Hell podcast is entirely devoted to the Summit of the Future and some of the specific UN reforms on the table. Co-host Anjali Dayal and I have an in-depth conversation with Richard Ponzio from the Stimson Center about the significance of the Summit and what to expect from its three major outcome documents. These include the ‘Pact for the Future,’ which enshrines the agreed-upon reforms from the Summit; the ‘Global Digital Compact,’ which aims to create a new framework for leveraging digital technologies for the common good;...

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On September 22-23, heads of state and government will gather in New York for the Summit of the Future, which will open the high-level week of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. The Summit has its origins in the 2021 report Our Common Agenda by UN Secretary-General António Guterres: it emphasises that today’s most pressing challenges can only be addressed through international cooperation. In the report – which was issued after the UN’s 75th anniversary, as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic – the Secretary-General proposed the Summit as an opportunity for countries to “forge a... Typically, UN member states individually consider each of the wide-ranging issues addressed at the assembly, negotiating resolutions for each agenda item. The Summit, however, provides an opportunity for member states to examine their cooperation more broadly, including on areas of intersection and overlap between issues that would normally be negotiated by different delegates in different... The centrepiece of the Summit will be the adoption of a Pact for the Future by the General Assembly, which covers five key areas:

The Pact will also include a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations as annexes. In theory, negotiations on the Pact for the Future ahead of the Summit could help UN member states to strengthen their commitment to multilateralism and re-energise efforts to collectively address global challenges. The reality, however, is shaping up to be far more pessimistic. In less than a week (September 22-23), the Summit of the Future will bring the world leaders to the United Nations Headquarters in New York to produce the Pact for the Future. This inter-governmentally negotiated pact is supposed to offer an actionable roadmap to a better present and future for all. The Summit is considered a once-in-a-generation opportunity to forge a new consensus on what the future of humanity and nature should be like and what needs to be done to secure it.

This event will be a critical step toward a reinvigorated multilateralism that enhances cooperation on critical challenges, addresses the current gaps in global governance and positively impacts our lives. The world leaders have some important decisions to make and their choices. Their decisions can pave the way for a future breakdown or a breakthrough to a better world for everyone. If you care about our lives, our world, and our future, you should care about this landmark event. Here is why: First, we face a development emergency.

We are failing to deliver on the UN Sustainable Development Goals—the 17 goals to end poverty, fight inequality, and protect the planet by 2030—to the point where many wonder if they are even achievable. The Summit might be the world’s last chance to rescue the SDGs, which demand unlocking finance for developing countries and sustainability transitions. The Summit aims to jump-start progress on the SDGs by pushing for more investment in developing countries, addressing global debt, and finding new ways to fund green recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and sustainable... It is about saving the planet and creating millions of new jobs in clean energy, digital infrastructure, and sustainable industries.

The Un Summit Of The Future What To Expect

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