UN75 Global Governance Forum to Focus on Innovation, Partnerships

Today, on the brink of the convening of the 75th U.N. General Assembly, a roadmap to a more effective and inclusive United Nations was unveiled alongside the agenda for this week's UN75 Global Governance Forum.

The development of the Roadmap for the Future We Want & UN We Need: A Vision 20/20 for UN75 and Beyond and the UN75 Global Governance Forum reflect broad global participation and put forth a fresh perspective on global governance, recommending new tools, platforms, and approaches for achieving peace, sustainable development, human rights, and a stable climate. The Roadmap document can be seen here.
World leaders will mark the historic 75th Anniversary of the United Nations on 21 September by formally endorsing a Declaration with twelve distinct commitments calling for global action. The Roadmap and the groundbreaking conversations that contributed to its development will serve as a guiding document, advancing the ideals and implementation of the UN75 Declaration goals to "deliver the future we want."

The UN75 Global Governance Forum, to be held on 16-18 September, will amplify aspects of the Roadmap that are the product of two years of policy dialogues and collective action and a cross-sector collaborative process. Findings will be presented by participants in its development, as more than 2,000 individuals gather virtually for a robust lineup of plenaries, partnership presentations, and concurrent sessions and conversations.
The UN75 Global Governance Forum will highlight:

• 20 multi-stakeholder partnership initiatives among civil society, the private sector, philanthropic institutions, governments, and the UN system.
• 20 institutional, policy, and normative change proposals.

The Forum's Honorary Co-Chairs, among the distinguished speakers throughout the two-day agenda, include Ban Ki-moon, Eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations; Dr. Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State; Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Director-General of the World Health Organization and Prime Minister of Norway; Professor Ibrahim Gambari, former Nigerian Foreign Minister and UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; Aya Chebbi, African Union Youth Envoy; Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Chair of The Elders; and Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia. The full roster of speakers can be seen here.
Jointly convened by The Stimson Center, Global Challenges Foundation, One Earth Future, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (New York Office), and the Global Governance Philanthropy Network, the Forum is premised on the idea that public-private partnerships that leverage the thinking, resources, and connections of their diverse participants will get us closer to achieving the UN's objectives than the shortcomings of government ever will.

The Forum's objectives are to:

• Initiate a new generation of scalable multi-stakeholder partnerships
• Build consensus around a strategy for a select number of "global governance institutional, policy, and normative innovations" that together help raise the political ambition of the UN75 Declaration.

This milestone initiative, effectively constructing a dynamic new framework on a foundation of multi-lateral cooperation, harnesses the ideas, experience and resolve of diverse stakeholders from civil society (including youth), scholars, policy entrepreneurs, UN system bodies and Member States, the private sector, and philanthropic institutions.

"With the publishing of this Roadmap, we aspire to raise the ambition of the Declaration being adopted by the General Assembly on September 21st," said Maureen Connolly, Director for the UN75 Global Governance Forum. "The partnerships that were initiated in recent months and the exchanges that were facilitated over the past two years demonstrate that global governance can be renewed and strengthened for the benefit of all nations and people, as more diverse stakeholders are engaged."
In developing the Roadmap, individual partnerships employed the forward-looking Innovation in Partnerships facilitation methodology, designed specifically to identify and recruit major stakeholders, and then work toward common goals, shared interests, and a unified program of action.

Discussions coalesced across two tracks in recent months – a Partnership Track, which included 280 participants from 38 countries, and focused on developing solutions for 21st century threats that have the potential to be scaled and implemented worldwide, and an Innovation Track, which involved participation by 260 experts worldwide, considering ways for mobilizing political support around proposals to make global governance more dynamic and accessible.
The array of complex challenges facing nations and peoples throughout the world underscore the magnitude of the tasks ahead and the inspiration that the Roadmap provides for the work ahead, including responses to cross-border health pandemics, economic shocks, inequality, climate instability, and threats to peace and security.
Day 1 of the UN75 Global Governance Forum on 16 September will provide high level dialogue on significant global governance issues through formal remarks, presentations, panels and perspectives. Day 2, on 17 September, will delve into specific solutions to global governance challenges through innovation proposals and collaborative partnerships. The full detailed agenda can be seen here.
The 16-17 September UN75 Global Governance Forum will be followed directly, on the afternoon of 17 September and 18 September, by a series of Community-Driven Sessions with expert speakers further amplifying issues highlighted during the Forum.
For more information on the Forum's work and how to register for the event, please visit www.UN75globalforum.org.