Our world has 3.2 billion young people under the age of 24, including 2 billion under 14. What will their life be like, and what legacy shall we leave them?

As we bequeath them the greatest technological and institutional advances that a generation has ever conceived, we could be the first generation in human history to leave its descendants worse off than its own parents – anywhere on Earth – because their future is fraught with immense risks in terms of quality of life: climatic upheavals, loss of biodiversity, pollution, glaring inequalities, massive migrations, pandemics, military and criminal insecurity… Although today’s adults are the first generation to have had the capabilities and means to overcome hunger, poverty, wars, inequalities, and a number of diseases, the media and social networks flood young people with depressing news about extreme climatic events, famines, future pandemics, and wars that kill, disable innocents and destroy a lifetime’s work in a flash…

Almost 80 years of international cooperation, in which the UN played a crucial role, have enabled unprecedented progress in many areas. Thus, under the impetus of the Millennium Development Goals, the proportion of people suffering from poverty was reduced by more than half, which in 2015 encouraged States to dare, for the first time, to commit to eradicating poverty in all its forms – by 2030 at the latest! But in the meantime the management of the Covid19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the Hamas attacks and the Israeli response in Gaza, the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, the trade tensions between East and West, to name but a few examples, have restarted the arms race and diverted precious resources needed for development towards military budgets, emergency aid, debt reduction and the fight against inflation. The 2030 Agenda – for a prosperous and healthy world, leaving no one behind – has been derailed, and the weaknesses of the UN system are coming to light in the face of the high expectations of global civil society in terms of peace, justice, prosperity, democracy and human development.

In this context, we must not underestimate the potential scope of the Summit of the Future which will bring together the highest representatives of UN member states in New York on September 22 and 23. The negotiation which precedes it to give birth to a “Pact for the Future” could be one of the rare opportunities to put the positive dynamics that have gone off track back on track, to foresee an end to the conflicts, and to face the new challenges posed to all of humanity by technological innovation.

Admittedly, it is difficult to imagine a worse time to reform the UN and adapt it to the challenges of the second quarter of the 21st Century. Tensions are at their highest. Nuclear proliferation is gaining ground. Cynicism, headlong rush, ego games, ideologies, macho arm wrestling, divergent economic credos, myopic interests all combine with legitimate demands for a world order that finally puts all people on an equal footing of equality, complicating the political equation to be resolved. How, in this tense context, can we imagine calling into question the right of veto in the Security Council, the voluntary submission of all States to the decisions of the International Court of Justice, or even finding the investments needed to fully achieve all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for all?

The Summit of the Future is a bet on reason and wisdom. With the unprecedented demographic growth of the last 50 years and taking into account the average ecological footprint of a human being even marred by glaring disparities, we have fully entered the era of interdependence between all members of the ” human family”. While the impact of certain perils will affect the poorest disproportionately, the fact remains that privileges and wealth will not protect anyone from some disasters.

It is therefore in the interest of each and everyone (governments, local authorities, businesses, associations, individuals, etc.) to work together with others, all countries combined, even those in conflict, to be able to overcome the many obstacles to survival. and well-being, therefore to re-launch the 2030 Agenda and to reshape, even only by small successive increments, the multilateral institutions (UN and international financial institutions) to enable humanity to navigate without too much damage through the 21st century and to offer a positive life perspective to today’s youth. It is by teaming up on vital objectives for all that we will be best able to discover each other beyond oppositions and conflicts, to understand that we share a common destiny, and to overcome differences by means other than force.

A double question therefore arises. On the one hand, will States manage to agree on how to implement the 2030 Agenda, how to restructure international finance, how to guarantee a peaceful resolution of any conflict, how to put an end to terrorism and organized crime, how to finally achieve nuclear disarmament, how to structure multilateralism in the 21st Century? On the other hand, will they respect the letter and spirit of the Pact to which they will commit – a sine qua non condition for achieving the 17 SDGs and not burying them?

Should we therefore, following the example of the Millennium Campaign, initiated in 2002 by the UN Secretariat in consultation with the United Nations agencies and programs, launch a new inter-agency global networking initiative as of September 24 (operating, like the previous one, at a distance from the United Nations system) in order to guarantee full appropriation by the civil societies of each country and by the national institutions of the consensus reached by their leaders?

Citizen engagement is also necessary to modify international trade rules and to bring official development assistance from “rich” countries to an adequate level. Of course, aid cannot “buy” the SDGs, but without a major increase many developing countries will not be able to make the necessary transitions and will be unable to do their part in climate change efforts. The ongoing wars easily mobilize tens of billions previously unobtainable for development aid which stagnates around 0.37% of the combined GDP of OECD member countries, very far from the 0.7% which should have been devoted to it since 1975 and the 1% since 1980!

This inter-agency UN initiative, designed to stimulate citizen participation, would be consistent with the “Declaration on Future Generations” which should be annexed to the Pact on the Future, and would materialize the desire not to cruelly cheat today’s youth about the regard in which they are held by current leaders.

Make no mistake: we are at the dawn of a new era. We have lived through the most profound and rapid transformations in History, but what is coming with artificial intelligence and what is becoming possible are transformations on a scale unlike anything we have known. So much so that a Digital Pact should also be annexed to the Pact for the Future, and that the latter attempts to dissuade anyone from militarizing outer space or from producing, as is now possible, terrestrial autonomous weapons.

This means that the Summit on the Future risks being our last chance not to ruin the future of the 2 billion young people under our responsibility.