In a small room of the Baha’i International Community (BIC) offices, just across the street from the United Nations, Under-Secretary-General Tshilidzi Marwala waited patiently as a microphone was clipped to his lapel, and asked if his tie was straight. Once the cameras were rolling, he spoke of the many world challenges discussed at the UN last week—from poverty to war, climate change and emerging digital technologies, each with its particular needs. 

But then, like so many others had done in similar interviews leading up to the United Nations Summit of the Future, Marwala shifted from the “what” of the work before humanity to the “why.” And in doing so, he began to speak about people, about human connections. 

“Before I came into education, I used to work for a brewery,” Marwala said with a broad grin. “That is many, many years ago. And a voice came to me … that it is better to brew people. So that they can have good values. So that they can be able to understand the world better.”

‘An important opportunity for humanity to advance’

The intergovernmental Summit of the Future, September 22-23, along with two civil society “Action Days” that preceded it, were called for by UN Secretary-General António Guterres as an opportunity to strengthen international cooperation and consensus on current and emerging global challenges. 

Capping more than a year of preparatory processes and high-level negotiations, the gatherings were undeniably technical in many regards. At their core, the discussions rested on questions central to the human sense of self and humanity’s understanding of what is happening today and what will happen next. 

“What is the collective future we envision for ourselves? What steps will we need to take to make that future a reality? These are the kinds of questions that have the power to elicit the response needed to address the challenges facing the global community,” said Bani Dugal, the BIC’s Principal Representative to the United Nations. 

“While great advancements have unquestionably been made over the past 80 years, the scale and complexity of global challenges is rapidly outpacing the evolution of the systems designed to respond to them,” Dugal added. “The Summit represents an important opportunity for humanity to advance along the path toward the future it desires.”

Intergovernmental negotiations on the Summit’s outcome document, the Pact for the Future, continued until the eve of the opening session, and expectations were divided around how useful it would be. But normative shifts in the way that global challenges are understood and how progress is conceived represent an advance that was emphasized by the BIC. 

“The international community wants to be grounded more in data and evidence; that’s a good thing. It’s looking at foundational principles such as justice, solidarity, and trust; that’s a good thing,” said BIC Representative Daniel Perell in an interview following the Summit, with the Global Dispatches (direct link, transcript) podcast. “This normative shift shouldn’t be overlooked, in thinking about the different institutional arrangements that this Summit gave birth to.”

Collaboration in action

Joining many other agencies and organizations, the BIC participated in the Summit and its Action Days through a range of activities and initiatives. 

BIC representatives were invited to speak or moderate a dozen events held by other organizations. These included spaces organized by the World Economic Forum, Global People’s Assembly, and International Environmental Forum.  

Fourteen official side events were held by the BIC or co-sponsored with diverse partnering organizations. These included key UN Missions, such as Chile, Kenya, Portugal, Slovenia, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam, as well as leading UN agencies such as the UN Department of Global Communications, the UN Futures Lab Network, and the International Organization for Migration. Major civil society organizations were also involved, including The Elders, GWL Voices, and the Club de Madrid. 

“The people, the organizations, and those who have accompanied [the BIC] have been so instrumental, so inspirational in moving this process forward to the stage that we are now at,” said Guy Ryder, Under-Secretary-General for Policy, in opening remarks at a BIC event hosted at its offices. “I think there’s no better place to start the Action Days, which are about to begin, and then the Summit of the Future itself … than here.” 

At the level of individual speakers and actors, the BIC was pleased to welcome the participation of dozens of current and former leaders. These included the President of the UN General Assembly, Ambassador Philémon Yang, of Cameroon; Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and High Commissioner for Human Rights, and current Chair of the Elders and member of GWL Voices; Susana Malcorra, former Foreign Minister of Argentina and President and cofounder of GWL Voices; Danilo Turk, former President of Slovenia and current President of the Club de Madrid;  Maria Fernanda Espinosa, President of the seventy-third session of the UN General Assembly, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador and Chief Executive Officer of GWL Voices;Tshilidzi Marwala, and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Rector of the United Nations University. 

Embracing interdependence

The growing interdependence of the peoples and nations of the world was among key themes that the BIC raised for collective exploration in its substantive contributions around the Summit. 

To this end, the BIC released a statement on the occasion of the Summit, Embracing Interdependence: Foundations for a World in Transition, which explores the opportunity and imperative for the international community to place humanity’s interdependence at the heart of systems of global governance.

“Through a collective act of will, the foundations for a better world can and must be laid,” the statement reads. 

It suggests that humanity’s present trajectory is no longer viable in the face of compounding global challenges, and that institutional reform must be accompanied by deeper levels of change. “The needs of the moment call for an even greater task of devising a new conceptual framework, which includes a new set of underlying assumptions, if innovations are ultimately to succeed.”

Reflecting global interdependence in the architecture of the multilateral system was a theme the BIC explored across its events. One collaboration, with the Global Governance Forum, saw the BIC co-host a three-session gathering exploring proposals for a new UN Charter document—arguing that the original was never intended to remain unchanged and that it no longer meets the needs of humanity. 

Together with the Coalition for the UN We Need, the BIC also hosted the concluding session of a two-year series of gatherings leading up to the Summit. The 16 sessions of the series drew over 1,200 participants from nearly 80 UN Member States, 20 UN agencies, and over 500 civil society organizations. Lessons learned from the series were shared in a BIC article titled From Consultation to Effective Action: Reflections on the ‘Road to the Summit’ Discussion Series. 

Optimism as a resource for action

How can governments, communities, and even individuals summon the will and sustain the commitment needed to achieve high ambitions for the future? Questions such as this were at the heart of the BIC's engagement across the Summit.

“In times of crisis, it is optimism and hope, grounded in the lived reality of the people of the world, that can help us build the trust we need and, ultimately, propel us forward,” said BIC Representative Daniel Perell. 

“Expressing pessimism is common and easy to do today,” Perell continued. “Such a posture, however, rarely leads to constructive outcomes. In that light, it’s not surprising that many prominent thinkers and leaders at the Summit have echoed the need to not only identify optimism but also draw on it as a resource to prompt and sustain transformative action.” 

To explore the dynamic between hope and action, the BIC, in collaboration with the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation and 23 partner organizations, undertook a film project known as the “Room for Optimism.” 

Over the course of three days, during the lead-up to the Summit, close to 50 individuals from a variety of backgrounds and institutional roles were asked two simple questions: “What gives you optimism in times of difficulty?” and “What motivates you to continue doing the work you do?” 

From the responses received, a five-minute film was produced and screened at an official side event to the Summit, entitled “Room for Optimism: A Precondition for Success in Challenging Times.” The film prompted a wide-ranging exploration among almost 100 attendees, around the roots and role of optimism in addressing global challenges. (See a recording or news summary of the event.)

Youth and future generations

Youth and future generations were central to the Summit of the Future, including a dedicated annex in the Pact for the Future and a youth-led Action Day opening that part of the Summit week.  

The period of youth and the unique role to be played by young people in the constructive transformation of society are themes the BIC explored as well, both at the Summit and before, including through the release of the statement In the Vanguard: The Role of Youth in an Ever-Advancing Global Society on this year’s International Youth Day. 

“The Summit of the Future provided an opportunity to re-imagine what the meaningful engagement of young people in multilateralism might look like—both in terms of the thoughts and assumptions that inform youth participation at the international level, and the concrete system-level changes required to more constructively draw on their insight and strengths,” said BIC Representative Cecilia Schirmeister, who organized several youth-focused events during the Summit. 

As a companion piece to its Embracing Interdependence statement, the BIC produced an eight-minute film that featured reflections from nine young people around the world on the Summit’s potential to address critical questions of identity, justice, and leadership, closing with the kind of world they hoped would exist in a hundred years.

“We need the diversity of the world,” said one young woman appearing in the film. “We need the young people. We need the old people. We need people from all different countries, all different religious backgrounds, to be contributing to the society that we want to live in.”

Toward a durable peace

During the Summit, many leaders emphasized the critical need for peace and security among nations, given the ongoing conflicts and rising tensions seen around the world. 

“It is clear that striving toward a durable peace continues to be a key priority for countless people,” said BIC Representative Liliane Nkunzimana, “a peace based not solely on the absence of violence, but on a true flourishing of communities.” 

Among the peace-related events Nkunzimana supported was a high-level panel discussion, co-sponsored with four UN Missions and the UN University Centre for Policy Research, titled “The Role of the General Assembly in Strengthening Peace and Security.”

“Peace is not only of central importance to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it stands at the very heart of the United Nations itself,” said keynote speaker H.E. Mr. Philémon Yang, the current President of the UN General Assembly, from Cameroon. 

“The advancement of peace is the cornerstone of the theme I have chosen for this 79th session of the General Assembly,” Yang continued, referencing his selected theme, “Unity in diversity, for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for everyone, everywhere.” 

Inspiring a change of approach

As the many activities around the Summit drew to a close, thought turned to how discussion and negotiated text can be leveraged into new approaches and innovative patterns of action in the coming months. 

It was a question that played out at the BIC offices as well. One seasoned speaker, vice president for a major global NGO speaking under the Chatham House rule, had prepared remarks for her portion of a discussion event.

But after watching the Embracing Interdependence film that opened the event, and the sentiments expressed by the youth featured in it, she was moved to change her approach on the spot. 

“I planned to start completely differently. But I was so inspired by the young people in the video. I wanted to thank you … for starting us on such a high level,” she said to the BIC representative moderating the event. 

“Videos like this one are exactly the place where conversations need to start,” she continued. “I completely appreciate the optimism that is coming from all the speakers’ points today. I'm absolutely encouraged to see the conversations that are happening.”