What is the UN's Summit of the Future in 2024 and why is it important?

This article was originally published in November 2023. It was most recently updated in September 2024.

After nine months of negotiations, world leaders have agreed on a landmark Pact for the Future at the UN General Assembly's Summit of the Future in New York.

"We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, while the President of the General Assembly, former Prime Minister of Cameroon Philémon Yang, said the Pact would “lay the foundations for a sustainable, just, and peaceful global order – for all peoples and nations.”

The Pact consists of 56 Actions designed to "turbocharge" the SDGs, but in particular to speed progress on issues around peace and security, global governance, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations.

The Summit came at the start of the UN General Assembly's High-level Week. It follows last year's SDG Summit in September 2023, which marked the halfway point to the 2030 deadline for meeting the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and resulted in the adoption of the SDG Political Declaration.

Just 17% of SDG targets are on track to date, the 2024 Sustainable Development Goals Report shows.

World leaders are also set to attend the World Economic Forum's Sustainable Development Impact Meetings (SDIM24) from 23 to 27 September, an annual series of dialogues designed to drive action, partnerships and innovation in sustainability to advance the SDGs.

The Summit of the Future: Multilateral Solutions for a Better Tomorrow was first proposed by the UN Secretary-General in his Our Common Agenda report in September 2021. The report was his response to a call from Member States for ideas on how better to address current and future challenges.

Billed by Guterres as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvigorate global action, recommit to fundamental principles, and further develop the frameworks of multilateralism so they are fit for the future”, the Summit consisted of dialogues and plenary meetings and the adoption of the Pact.

More than 4,000 people came together for the Summit, from heads of state and government to members of civil society and NGOs. It was preceded by the Action Days from 20-21 September, which featured strong commitments to action by all stakeholders, as well as pledges of $1.05 billion to advance digital inclusion.

Among other significant commitments, the Pact includes:

The Global Digital Compact, annexed to the Pact, is "the first comprehensive global framework for digital cooperation and AI governance", says the UN.

It includes commitments to connect all people, schools and hospitals to the internet, make the online space safe for all, and govern artificial intelligence (AI), with a roadmap that includes an International Scientific Panel and a Global Policy Dialogue on AI. It also features the first global commitment to data governance.

The first ever Declaration on Future Generations includes a commitment to more meaningful opportunities for young people "to participate in the decisions that shape their lives, especially at the global level".

In 2024, the climate crisis continues to bring record-breaking extreme weather events that have affected millions of people across the globe – with a disproportionate impact on less developed countries.

Research by Carbon Brief estimates more than 15,000 people were killed in Africa by extreme weather in 2023, which affected 34 million lives.

Between 1970 and 2021, 11,778 disasters have been attributed to weather, climate and water extremes. They caused more than two million deaths and $4.3 trillion in economic losses, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and multi-agency United in Science 2023 report.

The climate crisis is the biggest global risk over the next 10 years, and is deeply interconnected to other major geopolitical, societal and economic global risks, including conflict, infectious diseases and the cost-of-living crisis, as the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 showed.

Climate change impacts the world’s ability to meet the Agenda 2030 SDGs: from Goal #2 Zero Hunger, as crop failure threatens food security, to Goal #14 Life Below Water as warming seas threaten marine ecosystems and the livelihood of humans that rely on them.

In September 2023, three-quarters of chief economists polled by the Forum said geopolitical tensions will undermine progress towards the SDGs, while 6 in 10 warned of a deepening trade-off between development and climate action.

But humans can change the course of the climate crisis. The UN declared 2024 to 2033 as the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development.

Scientific solutions can “supercharge” progress towards the SDGs, the WMO says, including the use of weather predictions to boost food production and early warning systems to limit the impact of extreme weather events.

In July 2024, the UN convened the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), ahead of the Summit of the Future.

Despite an annual investment gap of $4 trillion to achieve the SDGs, the world has made notable progress in key areas, including climate action, the UN said.

Renewable energy consumption rose from 16.7% in 2015 to 18.7% in 2021; HIV infections dropped 27% from 2015 to 2022; child mortality under five hit a historic low of 4.9 million in 2023; and internet access now reaches 95% of the global population, a 70% increase over eight years.