At the UN, world leaders try to lay out a vision for the future — and actually make it happen
UNITED NATIONS — The UN General Assembly has adopted a “Pact for the Future” to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Now comes the hard part: uniting the world’s divided nations to quickly implement the 56 actions.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres thanked the 193-member world body for endorsing the pact and opening the door for countries to join forces to tackle challenges ranging from climate change and artificial intelligence to escalating conflict and rising inequality and poverty — and to improve the lives of the world’s more than 8 billion people.
“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink of the abyss,” he said. “Now our common destiny is to walk through it. That requires not just agreement, but action.”
The 42-page pact was adopted at the opening of a two-day “Summit of the Future” on Sunday, which continues on Monday. Among the leaders scheduled to address the summit are Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin.
Whether the pact would be adopted was uncertain as the assembly began its meeting on Sunday. There was so much tension that Guterres had prepared three speeches, one for approval, one for rejection and one if things were unclear, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Russia’s Vershinin launched the opening salvo. He proposed an amendment that would have significantly weakened the pact. “Nobody is happy with this pact,” he said.
It turned out that he was wrong. The 54 African countries opposed the Russian amendments and on their behalf the Republic of Congo moved a motion not to vote on the amendments. Mexico supported the Africans and in a vote on their motion the Africans received support from 143 countries, with only six countries supporting Russia: Iran, Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan and Syria. 15 countries abstained.
General Assembly President Philemon Yang then put the pact to the vote and banged his gavel, indicating that all UN member states had agreed to approve it. This was met with loud applause.
Russia has made great strides in Africa, including in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and the Central African Republic. The rejection of the amendments by the continent and Mexico, a major Latin American power, was seen by some diplomats and observers as a blow to Moscow.
Guterres, clearly relieved by the outcome, then challenged leaders: Implement the pact. Prioritize dialogue and negotiations. End “wars that are tearing our world apart” from the Middle East to Ukraine to Sudan. Reform the powerful UN Security Council. Accelerate reforms of the international financial system. Accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. Listen to young people and involve them in decision-making.
The UN’s main developing country group, the G77, which now has 134 members including China, echoed Guterres in a speech by Ugandan Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja.
“This pact must not be another futile exercise, but must marshal political will and commitment at all levels of global leadership to pragmatically address the current challenges and lay the foundation for solutions for our future global progress and challenges,” he said.
Nabbanja stressed that the future “must be free from all forms of oppression” and that the growing gap between developed and developing countries must be closed. The G77 regrets that the pact does not recognize measures that developed countries must take to close the gap, he said.
In a rare move at a high-level UN meeting where leaders often exceed announced time limits, Yang announced at the start of their speeches that they would be muted after five minutes. Among those who continued speaking after their microphones were Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Kuwait’s Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Khalid Al Sabah and Irish President Michael Higgins.
The Pact for the Future states that world leaders are coming together “at a time of profound global transformation” and warns of “rising catastrophic and existential risks” that could plunge people everywhere “into a future of protracted crisis and collapse.”
Guterres highlighted a number of key provisions in the pact and its two annexes: a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations.
The pact commits world leaders to reform the 15-member Security Council to make it more reflective of today’s world and to correct “historic injustices against Africa,” which has no permanent seat, and to address the underrepresentation of the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America.
It also represents “the first agreed multilateral support for nuclear disarmament in more than a decade,” Guterres said, and it commits “to steps to prevent an arms race in space and regulate the use of lethal autonomous weapons.”
The Global Digital Compact “includes the first truly universal agreement on the international governance of artificial intelligence,” the UN chief said.
On human rights, Guterres said: “In the face of rising misogyny and the pushback against women’s reproductive rights, governments have made explicit commitments to removing the legal, social and economic barriers that prevent women and girls from realizing their potential in every area.”
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Edith M. Lederer, chief UN correspondent for The Associated Press, has covered foreign affairs for more than half a century.
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See more of AP’s coverage of the UN General Assembly at https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations