Towards a global summit of the future?

If international plans are on course, there will be a global Summit of the Future (SOF) in 2024 at the UN General Assembly. Given that 2023 is already witnessing various global activities for the 30-year milestone of the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, as well as a summit on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), what could be the value-added of the SOF? And perhaps the value-subtracted?

The SOF projects a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to mobilise global attention to key issues, many of which are of an existential nature for humanity. Currently, the UN is issuing a series of policy papers to provide content which will shape a potential international pact or declaration in 2024.

There are 11 issues now taking shape: future generations, emergency platform, youth engagement, “beyond gross domestic product (GDP)”, global digital compact, information integrity, international financial architecture, outer space, towards a new agenda for peace, transforming education, and UN 2.0.

A key entry point for the item on future generations is to plan well, with caution and precautions, to ensure intergenerational stewardship so that while this generation can enjoy the fruits of its existence, there should be safeguards so that next generations will also be able to survive and thrive. Obviously, this will build on various existing commitments such as the agreements on climate change.

With regard to the second issue on the emergency platform, there is the lesson learned from the Covid-19 pandemic that there must be more preparedness to face future threats, including in relation to health, with cohesive stand-by arrangements, especially to help developing countries and marginalised communities.

For the third element concerning youth engagement, there is already a UN envoy on youth and related platform and they should enjoy space to affect multilateral decision-making.

Meanwhile, the ambivalence concerning the GDP is longstanding. Inherently, there is the question mark hanging over top-down policies based on a macro-economic framework rather than a more grounded approach based on equitable sharing/development and people-based participation.

Given that Covid-19 has accentuated deprivation and debt both in a home setting and at the statal level, it is likely that there will be more emphasis on debt relief, anti-poverty and concessional funding with metrics, more horizontal than vertical as instruments of change.

Items five and six are closely intertwined: the digital perspective and information context for a safe and inclusive society. A global digital compact is likely to emerge to respond to the digital divide between the haves and have nots, extremely visible through online gaps in the face of the recent pandemic.

A related issue is digital disruption. On the other hand, there is the needed balance between privacy in relation to personal data protection and freedom of expression, juxtaposed with the era of misinformation and disinformation. There is obviously the important role of the business sector in the form of gigantic digital platforms which exert great pressure on daily communications. On another front, beware of cyber-surveillance from non-democratic elements!

This lens is all the more challenging due to the advance of artificial intelligence (AI), to which a middle term has to be added: “generative”. The latter implies that AI is increasingly in a position to “create” information and data, with the offside being that it might also distort, discriminate and destroy — especially if it is self-automated.

To navigate this novelty, the world has yet to decide upon how much of the caution and precaution should be based regulation through laws from the state and/or self-regulation from the platform industry based on codes of conduct. Another interesting possibility is co-regulation. This can imply cooperative monitoring and responses shared between the state, the industry and civil society.

With regard to the seventh item on reform of the international financial architecture, there is a key link with the so-called Bretton Woods institutions, in particular the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which may need streamlining with a more compact structure and with more field access. The challenge is to devolve the financial architecture to be more attuned to SDGs’ implementation, debt sustainability and a global financial safety net for all.

The eighth item concerning outer space is to ensure that humankind is not jeopardised by weaponisation and toxic waste via the debris of satellites. It can also be linked with the ninth item on the proposed new agenda for peace. The new agenda will have to address how to strengthen the UN Peace-building Commission to target more measures to prevent conflicts, now implied by the notion of “sustainable peace”, and complemented by the older presence of peace-keeping. It would logically tackle not only systemic risks such as nuclearisation but also multiple violence affecting the population, especially women and children.

With regard to education, the future logically calls for learning rather than schooling, and quality education has to take into account the changing roles of teachers, students and technology, especially internet and post-internet access. Robots will be able to teach better on some fronts, but human relations will still need the gentle interaction between teacher and learner, especially to nurture analytical skills and empathy.

As for the UN 2.0, the aim will be to ensure that this post-war institution is revitalised and decentralised to address challenges with more systemised data and agile actions. It needs more field presences, geared to the prospects of posterity and aspects of vulnerability. There will also be expectations for more financial and other resources to help the Global South, needing astute and economical leadership.

As for the missing “deficits”, democracy and human rights have yet to be included strongly in the discourse towards the summit. Civil society stakeholders need to be integrated much more in the lead-up to the summit and its outcome, especially with parallel national inputs and consultations channelled to and from the multilateral setting.

Inevitably, the preferred ecosystem for the future will entail not only the material angle of humanity but also the non-material dimension of “humanity plus”, anchored in respect for nature and enhanced by the spirit-cum-spiritual.