UNESCO: An Overview of the Pact for the Future (presented in English and French; 15.00-16.30 CET)

Register at: https://unesco-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rzQCe0TFSyiGLw2QqiD_ew#/registration

The UN Summit of the Future: Multilateral Solutions for a Better Tomorrow, New York, 22-23 September 2024, aims to enhance cooperation on critical challenges and address gaps in global governance, reaffirm existing commitments including to the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Charter, and move towards a reinvigorated multilateral system that is better positioned to positively impact people’s lives. An action-oriented outcome document, Pact for the Future, is expected to be agreed by Member States through intergovernmental negotiations on issues they decide to take forward.

The effects of inequality, poverty, conflict, climate change, and the adverse impacts of technology – amongst others – are causing severe threats to the world. As the UN Secretary-General asserted in Our Common Agenda, ‘Humanity faces a stark and urgent choice: a breakdown or a breakthrough’. Awareness of potential catastrophe and dedication to transformation for better futures provides opportunities to mobilize collective intelligence towards just and sustainable futures for all.

Speakers in the first UNESCO Chairs Seminar of 2024 will provide an overview of the zero draft of the Pact for the Future. UNESCO Chairs and other experts will have the opportunity to react to the zero draft, which comprises a chapeau and the following Chapters:

1. Sustainable Development & Financing for Development
2. International Peace and Security
3. Science, Technology and Innovation and Digital Cooperation
4. Youth and Future Generations
5. Transforming Global Governance.

If agreed by governments, a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations would be annexed to the Pact for the Future.

In this Seminar, UNESCO Chairs will interact with invited experts to discuss the zero draft, and to consider how UNESCO Chairs and research partners might engage with these issues from their diverse intellectual and geographic vantage points. Subsequent UNESCO Chairs Seminars (April to July 2024) will focus on the substance of each of the 5 themes.

Opening remarks: Sobhi Tawil, Director, Future of Learning and Innovation Division, UNESCO

Opening presentation: ‘The Pact for the Future – zero draft’ Zazie Schafer, Director, Bureau of Strategic Planning, UNESCO

UNESCO Chairs and research partners
• Charles Hopkins and Katrin Kohl, UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education
towards Sustainability, York University, Canada
• Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, Head of Policy & Advocacy, Global Campaign
for Education; & Education and Academia Stakeholder Group (EASG),
Costa Rica
• Susan Osireditse Keitumetse, UNESCO Chair on African Heritage Studies
and Sustainable Development, University of Botswana, Botswana

Comments and discussion
Moderator: Zazie Schafer, Director, Bureau of Strategic Planning, UNESCO
All participants

Closing remarks
Keith Holmes, Research Coordinator, UNITWIN/UNESCO Charis Programme,
Future of Learning and Innovation Division, UNESCO