CIVICUS discusses the upcoming Summit of the Future with Julie Murray, Advocacy Advisor at Save the Children International, a global organisation advocating for children’s rights and interests worldwide.
In September, world leaders will gather at the United Nations (UN) World Summit of the Future to adopt the Pact for the Future. Ahead of the summit, civil society, academia and the private sector have contributed to the pact’s draft. Civil society sees the process as an opportunity to strengthen commitments on the environment, human rights and social justice, and CIVICUS advocates for the inclusion of language on the protection and expansion of civic space. But much work remains to be done before, during and after the summit to ensure ambitious commitments are adopted and then realised.
What will happen at the Summit of the Future?
The Summit of the Future is a multilateral meeting that will take place on 22 and 23 September during the high-level week of this year’s UN General Assembly. Its goal is to renew and restore trust in multilateralism to address the complex, shared global challenges of today and tomorrow.
During the summit, states will adopt three outcome documents: the Pact for the Future and its two annexes, the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the Declaration on Future Generations (DoFG). These are currently being negotiated and will outline commitments on sustainable development, peace and security, science, technology, innovation and digital cooperation, youth and future generations, and global governance.
The summit will primarily serve as a platform for states to make official statements and discuss key issues in interactive dialogues with other stakeholders.
How are the outcome documents being developed?
The Summit of the Future has been under discussion for about two years but was first proposed as part of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s Our Common Agenda in 2020. In 2022, states agreed to convene the summit in 2024 to adopt a concise, action-oriented Pact for the Future. The scope of the pact was later agreed at a ministerial meeting in September 2023.
Negotiations for each outcome document are co-facilitated by two states: Germany and Namibia are leading on the Pact for the Future, Sweden and Zambia on the GDC and Jamaica and the Netherlands on the DoFG. Co-facilitators began drafting the texts in late 2023. Chairs first consulted states and stakeholders and then requested written submissions, on the basis of which they prepared zero drafts that were circulated in early 2024. Each document went through a series of readings and negotiations among states and consultations with stakeholders.
As of late July, the co-facilitators have presented the second revision of the Pact for the Future and the DoFG and the third revision of the GDC. Third revision texts are close to final, and are released under the silence procedure, meaning that states typically only continue to negotiate on specific paragraphs if they cannot agree to the text as drafted, while the rest of the document is closed to changes.
The Pact for the Future has seen the most contentious debates, so negotiations are expected to continue until early August, while the other two outcome documents may be finalised earlier.
How much influence has civil society had in the process?
Civil society has had limited influence, as only states are officially involved in negotiations. However, co-facilitators have made efforts to take our views into account and integrate them when they align to states’ priorities.
Midway through the negotiation process, in May 2024, the UN hosted a civil society conference in Nairobi. Civil society played a key role in planning this conference. Many co-facilitators and other states attended to hear our priorities for the summit. Holding the meeting in the global south made it more accessible for local organisations. At the conference, the UN encouraged civil society to form coalitions around issues of common interest related to the summit.
Save the Children actively engaged throughout the process. We provided written inputs and participated in every stakeholder consultation. Our engagement also included advocacy approaches such as bilateral meetings, briefings, events, joint statements, open letters and working through coalitions.
Civil society has been vocal in urging that the outcome documents and the summit itself are inclusive and address the real needs of people, particularly those facing inequality and discrimination around the world. Save the Children supported children from six African countries to attend the civil society conference in Nairobi and three children to participate in the DoFG stakeholder consultation. People under 18 are often excluded from policy-making processes that affect their lives and their needs tend to be overlooked.
But unlike the 2030 Agenda negotiations, where civil society was able to participate, negotiations on the Pact for the Future and the GDC are closed to us, making it harder to follow the discussions. Fortunately, negotiations on the DoFG are open to civil society observation, allowing us to tailor advocacy messages and provide suggestions on language to include. We hope this practice will become more widespread in the future, because even though we also provide suggestions to states even when negotiations are closed to civil society, these can be more useful and focus on key areas of debate when we can observe negotiations.
What issues are you advocating should be included in the outcome documents?
We are pushing for more substantive language on children, particularly in the sustainable development chapter. Across UN negotiations, there has been some resistance to recognise children’s rights. However, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified human rights treaty. Meeting children’s needs today is crucial to fulfilling their rights tomorrow. We hope states recognise this.
Children make up about a third of the world’s population. With the escalation of war, violence and the climate crisis, the fulfilment of their rights is more urgent than ever. At Save the Children, our priority is to ensure these rights are mainstreamed throughout the three outcome documents.
We must invest in public services for the children of today and tomorrow. This requires reform of the international financial architecture to ensure all countries can finance climate resilience and adaptation measures, child protection, education, health and other essential services. Children must also be protected from violence. Every year, a billion children face physical, emotional and sexual abuse. They are growing up in a rapidly evolving digital world that was not designed for them, so we must ensure their rights and safety offline and online.
Children have the right to participate in decisions that affect them, as stated in article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. They are key stakeholders here, as they are the generation closest to future generations. So we have engaged children in virtual Children’s Assemblies to gather their priorities and will release a ‘Children’s Pact for the Future’. We have detailed our position in two policy briefs: Realizing Intergenerational Justice for Children and Future Generations and Fulfilling the Rights of Children, With Children, Today and Tomorrow.
It remains to be seen whether children’s rights will be meaningfully included in the pact. There has been much back and forth on this issue. Progress has been made in the chapters on peace and security and youth and future generations, but negotiations aren’t over yet. The GDC is progressive on children’s digital rights, and the DoFG is strong on ensuring an environment that upholds children’s rights, despite debates about whether children are ‘critical agents of change,’ as stated in the 2030 Agenda.
What are the next steps for civil society, and what are your expectations for the summit?
The Summit of the Future, the pact and its annexes have the potential to make a difference, but only if they are bold and action-oriented, include effective accountability mechanisms and are achieved through an inclusive process. Otherwise they won’t make a real difference to people’s lives now or in the future.
Civil society amplifies the voices of communities that are often excluded and forgotten, so it’s vital that civil society contributions are reflected in the outcome documents. This will make them more realistic, responsive to the needs of communities and more likely to gain the support needed for implementation.
Civil society must continue to monitor the negotiations, encourage states to make bold commitments at the summit, collaborate on implementation and monitoring and hold states to account afterwards. Virtual and in-person side events during the summit and its Action Days will create spaces for important multi-stakeholder conversations and amplify voices not typically heard within the UN.
The summit must include children’s voices. 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, drafted by Save the Children founder Eglantyne Jebb. Yet their rights and voices are often neglected and underfunded. But our work has shown they have a vested interest in the future and valuable insights to contribute.
Further, the Summit of the Future cannot operate in isolation. It must be linked to the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The summit’s work should also respect the UN Charter and international humanitarian and human rights law, and align with other UN outcomes and processes, such as the Commission on the Status of Women and the Financing for Development process.
We must remain ambitious and optimistic, and encourage states to do the same. Without high expectations and a clear vision of an equitable, just, peaceful and sustainable future, we’ll never get there.
Get in touch with Save the Children through its website or Facebook page, and follow @SC_UNNY and @save_children on Twitter. Get in touch with Julie Murray on LinkedIn.
This interview was conducted as part of the ENSURED Horizon research project funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
