On September 22^nd, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Pact for the Future, pledging to take 56 actions “to protect the needs and interests of present and future generations.” While the pact was negotiated and adopted by member states, civil society actively engaged in the process leading up to its adoption, including at the 2024 UN Civil Society Conference in Nairobi in May and the Summit of the Future Action Days in September.

As co-chair of the 2024 UN Civil Society Conference, Nudhara Yusuf was at the forefront of this engagement. As a Research Associate at the Stimson Center and Executive Coordinator of the Global Governance Innovation Network, she took part in the process leading up to the Summit of the Future and will be helping to ensure that member states follow through on their commitments.

In this interview, Nudhara discusses whether the Pact for the Future reflects the priorities of civil society and how to ensure the inclusion of civil society in the UN’s future work, particularly in emerging areas such as the governance of artificial intelligence.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You said earlier this month that if the Summit of the Future “comes close to the level of ambition it is striving for, it should have a huge influence on the general debate that follows.” Now that the summit has happened and the Pact for the Future has been adopted, in your view, did the pact come close to the level of ambition you were striving for?

I think the pact has given us a lot to work with, especially in the current geopolitical scenario. The pact negotiations hit quite a high level of discussion. We saw Russia propose an amendment at the last minute to significantly water down the pact, and we saw the Africa Group put forward a successful motion not to take action on that amendment. It was a huge show of support from the African region for the pact, which I think says a lot about the member states that care about this process—and Africa  is a big stakeholder in what happens next.

What happened with the summit was maybe not what we expected. There were moments quite close to the start of the summit where we were questioning if we were going to have a pact. Even if what we got was not necessarily what we expected in terms of the level of ambition, I think it’s given us enough to push forward. And it was mentioned in the general debate a couple times.

Read the full interview on IPI’s The Global Observatory.