This month, the United Nations Headquarters in New York will host the Summit of the Future, a four-day convening designed to enhance global cooperation and accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
“The idea of the Summit is to render the United Nations, the multilateral system, more effective … to make it more participatory, more networked. This, in the face of the very clear global challenges that we face,” Under Secretary-General for Policy and UN lead for the Summit, Guy Ryder, told reporters.
More than 130 Heads of State and Government are expected to attend and adopt a Pact for the Future. “The Pact for the Future will be your contract with each other and with your people,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Below are a few of the ways Spotlight Initiative is contributing to the goals laid out in The Pact.
1. Enhancing the safety of women and girls
None of the Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved without the full, safe, equal and meaningful participation and representation of all women and girls in political and economic life. By 2025, Spotlight Initiative will have prevented violence for an estimated 21 million women and girls. We do this by promoting laws and policies that address violence; breaking down discriminatory gender norms and practices; ensuring that survivors of violence are able to access quality services; and supporting civil society organizations and activists working to end gender-based violence in their communities. For example, in Malawi and Mozambique, Spotlight Initiative worked with communities and traditional leaders to ensure that laws preventing child marriage were understood and implemented at the local level. In Latin America and Papua New Guinea, it supported policies to better protect women activists, while education and economic empowerment initiatives around the world have ensured that girls and women vulnerable to violence are equipped with the skills they need to succeed.
2. Building multilateralism
The Pact for the Future aims to strengthen multilateral systems and institutions by making them more effective, inclusive and coordinated. It’s only by working together that nations will be able to overcome the enormous challenges facing people and our planet. Spotlight Initiative enhances multilateralism by bringing together the entire UN system, governments, civil society and the private sector for a “whole of society” approach to eliminating violence. In its first five years, the Initiative was led by governments in 25+ countries, and implemented by 11 UN agencies and over 1,000 civil society organizations around the world. This comprehensive approach was up to 90 per cent more effective at reducing violence than siloed programmes.
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3. Accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted as a blueprint for the future by all UN Member States in 2015. They call for urgent action to end poverty, improve health and education, reduce inequality and spur economic growth – all while tackling the climate crisis and preserving the environment. Yet in 2024, only 17 per cent of the SDG targets are on track to be achieved by 2030. As a High-Impact Initiative of the United Nations, Spotlight Initiative is driving progress towards gender equality (SDG 5), but it’s also contributing to the achievement of the other SDGs too. For example, by providing health services to vulnerable women and girls, the Initiative is driving progress towards SDG 3, good health and wellbeing. Through education, vocational training and by preventing gender-based violence, we expect to have helped nearly one million girls stay in school by 2025, advancing SDG 4, quality education.
4. Leaving no-one behind
The Pact for the Future aims to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies for sustainable development. Spotlight Initiative integrates the principle of ‘Leave No-one Behind’ in all its programmes by partnering with women and girls who face intersecting forms of discrimination. This includes women and girls with disabilities, elderly women, indigenous women and ethnic minorities, migrant women and LGBTQI+ people.
