Our Future Insights
Year in Review, Year in Preview
In our first quarterly edition of 2024, we made a bold call: “Now is the time to step up our efforts, directing more resources toward young people and young countries that need it most.” This rallying cry has been the heartbeat of our work this year – a transformative period of action, milestones, and initiatives that redefine global cooperation for the present and future.
As 2024 comes to a close, the Our Future Agenda program celebrates a year of bold action, transformative milestones, and unprecedented youth-led impact. Across diplomacy, leadership, mobilization, and innovation, our initiatives have laid the groundwork for a brighter and more sustainable future.
Here’s a look at how we’ve shaped global cooperation this year.
From Summit to Action: Diplomacy in Motion
The UN Summit of the Future was a pivotal moment for multilateralism in 2024. At its heart were three groundbreaking frameworks: the Pact for the Future, the Global Digital Compact, and the Declaration on Future Generations. These documents chart a visionary path for tackling global challenges – from climate resilience to digital equity – while putting youth and future generations at the center.
Key accomplishments include:
- Supporting over 85 member states in embedding gender equality, digital governance, and climate action into Summit outcomes.
- Facilitating six co-facilitators’ negotiations to emphasize foresight, youth empowerment, and sustainability.
As UN Secretary-General António Guterres remarked:“We cannot create a future fit for our grandchildren with a system built by our grandparents.” This year’s achievements have turned that vision into action.
Future Generations on the Future
The Declaration on Future Generations transformed how governance includes long-term thinking, anchoring the interests of tomorrow’s leaders in today’s decisions.
Key outcomes include:
- Amplifying youth leadership through our ImPACT Coalition for Future Generations, mobilizing resources for follow-up actions on Summit commitments.
- Establishing the Panel of the Future with the African Union, where 10 young leaders shaped Africa’s vision for global governance in the 21st century.
- Launching the Group of Friends for Future Generations, a coalition of Global South nations ensuring young voices shape global policy.
This landmark Declaration serves as a foundation for building systems that prioritize fairness, ecological balance, and generational equity.
Revolutionizing Youth Leadership
The Engine Room for the Future, a digital and intergenerational platform, remained at the forefront of empowering young changemakers in 2024. With 21 Next Generation Fellows leading the charge, youth leadership scaled new heights this year.
Highlights include:
- Engaging over 240,000 leaders globally, with 86% from the Global South, through impactful campaigns.
- Driving climate action at COP29, where changemakers like Ngimou Victorine Nchokuno led discussions on climate education and resilience in vulnerable regions.
- Launching The Future We Build: 2100 Learning Agenda, embedding youth insights into global strategies for the 2100 SDG Roadmap.
Our Fellows turned aspirations into action, from advocating at G20 presidencies to influencing global platforms like the Summit of the Future. Their leadership underscored our guiding belief: young people aren’t just part of the conversation – they’re shaping its direction.
Mobilizing for 2100: National Visions for the Future
This year saw unprecedented global engagement through 18 Intergenerational Town Halls, held in countries like Brazil, India, and Sierra Leone. These forums bridged local realities and global ambitions, tackling urgent issues such as climate justice, inequality, and technological shifts. They connected local realities to global ambitions and made hopes and concerns of future generations more palpable in different national contexts.
Key achievements include:
- Connecting 44,000 participants to shape local priorities aligned with global frameworks like the Pact for the Future.
- Elevating grassroots voices in global debates, including the G20 Summit and COP discussions.
These dialogues have become a cornerstone of the 2100 Roadmap, ensuring that regional insights guide global decision-making.
Investing in Youth Futures
The launch of the Funders Collective at the Summit of the Future marked a seismic shift in how the world invests in young people. Developed over 18 months through intergenerational collaboration, this initiative redefines funding models by prioritizing long-term, youth-led impact.
Notable highlights include:
- Mapping 115 funding mechanisms and launching the Global Youth Fund to empower innovators in the Global South.
- Engaging leaders of the largest youth and child organizations to shift from transactional to transformational investments, particularly in regions with high youth populations.
- Announcement of a new financing platform that integrates equity and decolonized practices into global funding strategies to address systemic disparities.
The Funders Collective embodies a bold vision: empowering young leaders to be not just participants but drivers of transformative change.
Looking Ahead to 2025
Our ambitions for 2025 build on the foundations laid this year:
The 2100 Visionaries Taskforce
Launching a platform for young leaders and policymakers to co-create solutions for the final SDG Summit in 2027.
Expanding Platforms
Scaling the Engine Room and Town Halls to ensure youth voices influence key global events like COP30 in Brazil and the G20 Summit in South Africa.
The “What If…?” Series
Challenging decision-makers with youth-driven policy scenarios for transformative change. Initiatives like Pact Decoded and our animation series where we transformed intricate UN policies into relatable and empowering narratives for young changemakers.
Unlock Story Lab
Amplifying youth narratives to spark collective action through storytelling and decoding complex policies for wider audiences.
Together, we’re forging a future defined by intergenerational leadership, solidarity, and action. As we look ahead, the path to 2100 is not just a vision – it’s a call to action for all.
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