What is the United Nations Summit of the Future

At a time when global governance has become increasingly tested by complex crises, geopolitical tensions, and emerging worldwide risks such as climate change and economic inequality, it has become more important than ever for the world to reinvigorate Multilateralism.

While the world we live in today is more interconnected than ever, the same world has also become increasingly fragmented. We have seen the rise of nationalism, global rivalries, and the erosion of trust in international institutions which is making it increasingly difficult for nations to find common ground on critical issues.

The Summit of the Future is an important initiative started by the UN in 2024, and it lays a clear path on how the world can address the fast-growing challenges of the 21st century. It is a forward-looking event where world leaders, policymakers, and civil society representatives are brought together to implement and address paramount global challenges.

In recent years, nationalistic sentiments have fueled over 60% of global conflicts, highlighting the urgent need for stronger, more cohesive international cooperation to address problems that transcend national borders.

The UN is acutely aware of how vital international collaboration is, and the Summit is meant to modernize and strengthen multilateral institutions to make them more effective, inclusive, and responsive to current global realities. This includes reform of the UN Security Council that is ripe for becoming more representative of the geopolitical and economic realities of the 21st century.

A striking fact is that only 3 out of 15 permanent members of the UN Security Council represent the global South. More than 70 years after the creation of the Security Council, the whole of African continent is still not represented at the Security Council. It is crucial that all nations, large and small, have a seat at the table in important discussions that impact their futures.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 remains one of the UN’s top priorities, but aligning these global priorities with individual priorities of the nations is a daunting task. Only in 2023, global military and weapons spending reached a record high of $2.443 trillion. At the same time the funds for battling poverty and climate change remain under resourced to date.

The Summit is focused on accelerating progress towards these goals, by reducing inequality, combating climate change, and ensuring access to quality education and healthcare for all. Special attention needs to be given to how countries can enhance cooperation in addressing biodiversity loss, and the ongoing challenges posed by the global digital divide.

No country, regardless of its wealth or power, can address issues pressing the world on its own and in isolation.

Not so long ago, the COVID-19 pandemic vividly outlined the urgent need for a globally coordinated response to health emergencies. Similarly, climate change demands collective action from all nations, particularly the most industrialized ones, who bear a disproportionate responsibility for historical emissions.

The Summit will help foster the kinds of international collaborations needed to face such challenges head-on, promoting shared responsibility and mutual support among nations.

By prioritizing social justice alongside economic development, the UN will seek to ensure that no one is left behind as countries pursue their development goals.

What is important and different with the new approach with the Summit, is the focus on inclusivity and youth. The UN has long recognized the importance of involving civil society in decision-making processes, and providing an opportunity for young people, indigenous communities, and other marginalized groups to voice their concerns and contribute to solutions.

By empowering these groups, we can help ensure the voices of those who are often left out of global governance discussions are heard and integrated into decision-making processes.

Strengthening the system of nations working together to solve common problems is essential for addressing global challenges. The world must invest much more in multilateralism to ensure that it remains robust and capable of tackling the crises of the future. Committed political and financial backing is needed to ensure that these goals are met and that the benefits of development are shared equitably across the globe.

In a world where the risk of conflict and instability remains perpetually high, it is vital that the UN is empowered and fully supported to carry out its important work in peace, development and diplomacy. The world’s future, the future of our children, is inextricably linked to the success of the Summit as its outcomes will shape the direction of international cooperation and leave a legacy for future generations to come.

Based in Entebbe, Uganda, the Regional Service Centre Entebbe (RSCE) is the flagship Service Centre for the UN Secretariat, providing administrative, logistics and ICT services to 46% of all UN field operations worldwide. Employing close to 400 staff and managing almost 400,000 transactions annually, the RSCE supports over 16,400 personnel in 16 UN missions and offices across Africa. The RSCE is also home to the Regional Training and Conference Centre and the UN C4ISR Academy for Peace Operations that host over 250 events a year with over 3,500 participants.