In September 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the long-awaited ‘Pact for the Future’, along with a ‘Global Digital Compact’ and the ‘Declaration on Future Generations.’
The pact has an ambitious and wide-ranging scope that includes the pledge to transform global governance and reinvigorate the multilateral system by making it more effective, capable, and prepared for future crises. Through structural reforms that promote just, democratic, equitable, and inclusive governance processes, the pact seeks to better represent today’s world and ensure financial stability through increased cooperation (Action 38). In addition, the pact aims to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and spells out 56 actions in areas that include peace and security, global governance, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation and human rights.
Columbia SIPA convened leading experts and UN practitioners for the inaugural State of the World conference on September 25 to discuss how the agreement’s ambitious commitments and promises can be translated into concrete action. The first panel focused on the pact’s pledge to transform global governance and revive the multilateral system.
Daniel Naujoks, professor and director of the International Organization and UN Studies specialization at SIPA, emphasized the need to take the pact’s high-level, broad and often vague language and aspirations and implement the objectives into “clear, measurable, accountable activities… Just because the pact is framed around these 56 actions does not mean that key actors will actually take actions, take sufficient action or action that will have an impact,” Naujoks said. “The question we need to ask is how can civil society, academics, and government representatives use the ideas in the pact as advocacy tools, as the foundation for lobbying, for convincing – how can we fill the actions with meaning?”
Referencing the role and sentiment of many African nations during the pact’s negotiation, moderator Jean-Marie Guéhenno, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping and current Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of Practice in International and Public Affairs at Columbia-SIPA recalled their overarching message was clear: “We do not want a world where the United Nations stops at the border. We want a world where issues are dealt with in a collective, cooperative effort.” At the center of a reinvigorated multilateral system is, of course, sufficient representation of African states on key decision-making bodies, such as the Security Council and institutions within the international financial architecture.
Acknowledging the work that had already gone into the pact’s creation and looking ahead to the work that remains for its implementation, Guéhenno said, “The Pact for the Future may be a beautiful dream, but it is a dream shared by billions of people.”
Mending a world in crisis
Having spent the last five years spearheading negotiations for the Summit and the last 24 years directing policy initiatives for several consecutive Secretaries-General, Michèle Griffin, Director of the Summit of the Future at the UN Secretary-General’s Executive Office, emphasized the Pact’s unprecedented promise. In the wake of mounting global crises, she described it as an opportunity for the world to “course correct,” with new language and agreement on emerging risks, such as the governance of outer space and Artificial Intelligence, as well as overdue amendments to existing agreements on nuclear disarmament and Security Council reform. Griffin hailed the pact as a saving grace for a world in turmoil and said, “We are at a moment of either ‘breakthrough’ or ‘breakdown’ […] and the choice has been made now in the Pact for the Future.”
However, some question the ability of member states and existing multilateral instruments to ensure that the Pact’s many promises are delivered. At the forefront of global governance is the UN system, which Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director of the Global Governance Forum, described as outdated and “no longer fit for purpose.” While acknowledging the Pact’s strategic importance, Lopez-Claros reported on the proposals of the Global Governance Forum, that for the past two years hosted consultations among scholars, experts, practitioners, and former senior government officials to draft a potential Second Charter.
The proposed Charter includes Security Council reform, which is top of mind for many considering the current deadlock preventing international intervention to stop ongoing mass atrocities in Gaza and Sudan. Lopez-Claros argued that a new UN Charter which includes significant Council reform will better enable the global governance architecture to respond to some of today’s most pressing challenges, such as climate change, rising inequality, gender mainstreaming, and a dysfunctional global financial system, which he believes is on the brink of collapse. Lopez-Claros said, a revised UN charter “could bring our global governance architecture, particularly the UN system, into the 21st Century, and empower the organization to do the kinds of things that now it is failing to do.”
Strengthening representation at the global level
While some differences in approach and opinion presented themselves onstage, all panelists agreed that under-representation of marginalized groups and historically oppressed Member States is an issue that must be urgently addressed across the global governance architecture within the UN and also in organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Touting inclusion as a key outcome of the Summit, Griffin praised participation by new actors from the private sector, as well as the collective advocacy for equal representation demonstrated among countries of the Global South. However, as highlighted by Lopez-Claros and Saru Duckworth, MPA in Development Practice Candidate 2025 at SIPA and Next Generation Fellow at the UN Foundation, the Pact of the Future has only rounded the first corner of a long and winding road to diverse representation at all levels of global policymaking.
Duckworth offered her perspective on the future of global governance, as a young person and youth advocate who actively contributed to conversations that shaped the Declaration on Future Generations. Adopted as part of the Pact, the Declaration is the first policy of its kind to acknowledge the responsibility that current generations have to protect the rights and well-being of future generations through enhanced investment in and attention to areas such as environmental sustainability, social justice, and foresight planning. But above all, it encourages young people to play a greater role in global decision-making processes that will impact their future.
Reflecting on the implementation of the Pact’s promises, Duckworth affirmed that more needs to be done to ensure that young people are able to garner a seat at the table to participate in short- and long-term planning processes, especially at the grassroots level. She said, “There is always suspicion when young people are involved. We are not treated as experts, even experts of our own experience […] And so, I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of shifting that mindset.”
Under-representation of member states within the Security Council was another key priority area that the UN Charter revision sought to address; a problem which cannot be solved through the Pact alone. Acknowledging that 62 countries have never served on the Security Council, Lopez-Carlos made the case for an increase in the number of Council seats from 15 to 25 and advocated for the creation of six-year terms for five member states – one from each global region – to guarantee regional representation and encourage institutional continuity. While the same five permanent member states would uphold their current positions on the Council, their right to veto would no longer be absolute, but rather put to a two-thirds majority vote, effectively giving more weight to diverse voices from around the globe.
Going forward
Overall, the adoption of the Pact for the Future is a monumental achievement for the future of multilateralism – certainly in commitment; yet action through implementation remains to be seen. Above all else, the Pact has reaffirmed that member states are still committed to the creation of a more effective and equitable global governance system that: (i) relies on strong inter-governmental partnerships and cooperation; (ii) is able to quickly and decisively act in the face of threats to international peace and security; and (iii) is comprised of, and receptive to, diverse representation.
The high-level panelists at SIPA’s State of the World Conference agreed, the Pact is just the beginning of the world’s discussion on multilateral reform, which will ultimately require much more than carefully negotiated declarations. It will require continuous and comprehensive stakeholder consultation during implementation and may need to be further reinforced by a legally binding UN Charter reform. Either way, the Pact for the Future has legitimized the pervasive need for multilateral reform, which has given (most) Member States at least one thing to agree on.
Reflecting on the road ahead, Duckworth said, “I think [the Pact] reiterates what young people have been saying all along, which is that we are already a globalized world […] We can’t go back, so we have to go forward, and we have to go forward together.
About the author
Hannah Barry is a second-year Master of Public Administration in Development Practice (MPA-DP) student at Columbia SIPA and a Programme Assistant for the school’s United Nations Partnership Initiative. Previously she worked with the United Nations World Food Programme in Zimbabwe and Afghanistan, where she contributed to urban cash-based transfer programming and operational information management. With a strong background in political science and humanitarian affairs, she is passionate about the design of inclusive and sustainable social protection programmes for vulnerable populations.
You can watch the proceedings of the State of the World Conference here:
Opening Remarks
Reform of Global Governance
Reform of International Financial Architecture