Week of 18-28 September. New York welcomes world leaders again. The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly returns with a theme that sounds as a warning and as a promise together: “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a UN working for all”. Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh will preside over this session, and the high-level Week program is built around a statement that no one can avoid. The world is changing. The question is no longer if it will change, but how.
The first event is SDG Moment, September 18 in the morning. It is the platform where Secretary General António Guterres gathers the initiatives that work, the stories that show that change is possible. From the Sustainable Development Goals to concrete projects that manage to move communities, Moment highlights what works when countries decide to move really.
The general debate arrives on 22 September. It is the time when the heads of state and government take the podium and declare their priorities. It’s a showcase, it’s political, it’s the time when leaders say what really matters to them. In the context of a climate crisis that advances, of geopolitical tensions that multiply, of inequalities that grow, the statements of these days will give the measure of what governments are willing to move or not.
On 23 September the Climate Summit arrived. It is not a forum for theoretical discussions. It is a meeting convened directly by the Secretary-General with leaders of major economies, vulnerable countries, producers and consumers of energy. Ten years after the Paris Agreement, the world knows something that was not yet certain: the global warming limits we thought could be maintained have already been exceeded. The energy transition is accelerating. The summit must define how governments will cooperate to strengthen energy security, promote climate justice, protect people from an accelerated crisis.
On the same day, a parallel meeting will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, adopted in 1986. Forty years later, the question remains the same: how do you ensure that each member of the company fully participates in crucial decisions, with equal opportunities and fair distribution of resources? The Declaration has influenced laws and policies. But on the ground, the road to be done is still huge.
On September 24th a theme that touches the very existence of entire nations. The rise of the sea level. It’s not a future question. It is a present threat that strikes today the small island states, the coastal areas at low altitude, populations that have already begun to escape from their homes because water rises. The meeting will bring together leaders, experts, interested in addressing urgency. The goal is to develop concrete solutions, binding commitments, ensure that the planet remains habitable for those who now have no escape.
On September 25th, the pandemics. Prevention, preparation, response. COVID-19 showed what happens when the world is not ready. This whole day meeting aims to mobilize national, regional, international political will. It will culminate in a political statement reflecting consensus on how multilateralism and global solidarity can stop health crises before they become catastrophic.
On 28 September the 25th anniversary of the Declaration and the Action Programme of Durban arrived. Adopted at the 2001 World Conference on Racism in South Africa, they provided the global model to combat racial discrimination. Twenty-five years later, racism remains. Xenophobia grows. Discrimination persists. The meeting will offer the opportunity to accelerate efforts to combat all this, to mobilize global public support.
Finally, on 29 September, the International Day for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. It was the first priority of the General Assembly since 1946, immediately after the world saw what nuclear weapon meant. Today, with the geopolitical tensions increasing, the theme is urgent as perhaps it had not been since the Cold War.
Two platforms hold together the week. The SDG Media Zone produced by the United Nations Global Communications Department, with interviews and roundtables on solutions from 21 to 25 September. And the Goals Lounge called by the Deputy Secretary General, from 14 to 25 September, with spontaneous dialogues, interactive experiences. Both streamed on UN WebTV. It is no longer just an event for the heads of state. It is a global platform where the whole world can look, listen, make an opinion on how things go.
Guterres said it on June 26: “We, the peoples. Not us the powerful. We, the peoples, all of us, united by one conviction: that we are safer, stronger, more human when we are united”. The September High Level Week will be the test of what this conviction is still alive in the leaders that the General Assembly room will host.
L’articolo New York rediscovers the world scene: in September the High Level Week of the General Assembly comes from IlNewyorkese.
