The formal preparations for the September 2024 Summit of the Future, to be held at the United Nations, are underway. Responding to an update in February on the “Our Common Agenda” vision proposed by Secretary-General António Guterres, a large number of government representatives across diverse regions signaled — rather defensively — how the Sustainable Development Goals Summit, planned for September 2023, was this year’s most significant diplomatic gathering at UN headquarters.

As Csaba Korosi, the president of the General Assembly, noted, “Above all, it [Our Common Agenda] focuses on SDG acceleration and transformation, with 80 percent of its recommendations directly supporting the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.”

Unless soon reconciled, the continued perceived competition between the Summit of the Future and the SDG Summit will affect adversely the negotiations on the former’s scope (regarding intergovernmental tracks) and ambition. Fortunately, the two summits are already highly compatible, and skillful multilateral diplomacy can enhance their interactions further. The sooner that the preparations for the Summit of the Future, or SOTF, shift from process-oriented discussions to a focus on meaningful global governance innovations, the quicker that a consensus can be built around creative, practical and targeted ways to overhaul the methods and institutions for advancing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Three positive interplays between the two summits

Referring to the somewhat acrimonious negotiations last year on the Summit of the Future modalities resolution, which led to pushing the summit’s convening to 2024 instead of this year, Cuba, on behalf of the G77 and China, reiterated its lingering concerns that the summit’s multiple tracks could divert precious time, especially for smaller UN missions, political attention and resources away from the “main priority” of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The European Union, however, with a broad cross-section of countries, indicated the urgent need “to shift gear and turn our discussion from process to substance.”

As a result, an emerging diplomatic fault-line between several influential developing countries and a large proportion of the UN’s membership, the Secretariat and many civil society groups is whether to begin now or wait until after the SDG Summit to start serious work on a successful Pact for the Future (the chief outcome document) and other instruments for the 2024 summit.

In response, by emphasizing at least three tangible ways that the two summits positively reinforce each other — generating high-level political support, financial and technical assistance and conceptual clarity for improved global governance — the false trade-offs vocalized by a few Summit of the Future detractors can be superseded by a powerful reframed narrative and communications strategy.

High-Level Political Support: As noted, numerous member states participating in initial Summit of the Future preparatory discussions in February acknowledged that the SDG Summit merited the highest political attention on the UN’s calendar. Similarly, the secretary-general stressed at the time how “Our Common Agenda” will build directly upon the SDG Summit, ensuring that it remains “the centerpiece of our work this year. . . .”

With Indonesia having presided over the G-20 nations last year and India doing so this year, Brazil next year and South Africa in 2025, we can expect this influential group of developing countries to back progress toward mobilizing technology, finance, trade and debt-relief for meeting both poor and rich countries’ 2030 Agenda targets. The G-20 can also foster high-level attendance at the SDG Summit, while encouraging the treatment of politically contentious global financial architecture reforms at the Summit of the Future as integral to implementing the SDGs.

Financial and Technical Assistance: Additionally, the SOTF can direct much-needed financial and technical support to delivering the 2030 Agenda, thereby buttressing ECOSOC’s Forum on Financing for Development (FfD) and the Addis Agenda for SDGs financing, which developing countries regularly fret have both come up short.

For example, next year’s summit is widely anticipated to embrace calls for strengthened coordination on global economic governance to respond to cross-border economic shocks, reduce inequality and promote development that is environmentally sustainable. Bringing together the secretary-general, the World Bank and the IMF’s leaders, the G-20 and, ideally, the 174 UN member states not directly represented in this leading forum, could through a new Biennial Summit on the World Economy lend support for, among other critical issues, the proposed high-level FfD Conference in 2025.

Guterres has recognized the value of bringing the G-20 closer to the UN’s priorities in his repeated calls for the group to agree on a $500 billion annual stimulus for sustainable development through a combination of concessional and nonconcessional finance. The Summit of the Future is also well positioned to review and upgrade how the UN system’s programs, funds, agencies and multilateral development banks design and execute technical assistance programs, especially in the most vulnerable countries.

Conceptual Clarity for Improved Global Governance: To succeed, both the SDG Summit and Summit of the Future require a holistic analytical lens and a whole-of-system approach to governing. Working across the UN’s three pillars of peace and security, sustainable development and human rights through multiple negotiation tracks, the SOTF aims, first and foremost, to modernize the international machinery that is needed to support member states and nonstate actors in meeting their 2030 Agenda and Paris Climate Agreement commitments. Doing so can create tangible multiplier effects, such as tackling the causes of political and criminal violence (major barriers to SDG implementation), mitigating the chief factors accelerating climate change (Goal #13) and building opportunities to move people and nations out of extreme poverty (Goal #1) and toward sustainable development.

Exploiting the two summits’ other “win-win” links

These further points are also good reasons for moving ahead with major substantive preparations for the Summit of the Future:

• First, extensive President of the General Assembly-sponsored thematic consultations on “Our Common Agenda” recommendations were held a year ago, lending additional political clout to the 2030 Agenda and setting the stage for the closely related adoption, last September, of the summit’s modalities resolution.
• Second, judging from the good progress underway toward a strong political declaration for the SDG Summit, it is likely that Summit of the Future preparations will further boost this effort.
• Finally, ensuring that all UN missions can equally contribute to the many tracks feeding into the 2024 summit is a valid concern. That can be done by ensuring enough lead time; having the UN Secretariat and co-facilitators of specific tracks share documentation well ahead of a meeting; and encouraging civil society to provide real-time summaries and analysis of intergovernmental negotiations through an independent SOTF information clearinghouse for the benefit of both smaller UN missions and civil society alike.

On the latter point, all UN missions, big or small, may wish to source more capacity and networks for both summits, in 2023 and 2024, by welcoming the knowledgeable participation of at least one civil society and one youth representative on inclusive national delegations from the start of summit preparations, as recommended at the recent Global Futures Forum in New York City.

Reframing the narrative on how the intertwined SDG Summit and Summit of the Future reinforce each other — especially since they are spaced exactly one year apart — will yield multiple dividends. It is also encouraging to see governments being open to positioning this September’s Ministerial Forum, to feed into the 2024 summit, just after the SDG Summit (provisionally scheduled for Sept. 19-20). Exploiting the many potential “win-win” links are not merely important steps for the two summits, but their success also depends on these deep and varied connections.

Richard Ponzio

Director and Senior Fellow, Global Governance, Justice & Security at The Stimson Center

Richard Ponzio is a senior fellow and director of the Stimson Center’s Global Governance, Justice and Security program.