Implementing the Pact for the Future

Adopted at the 2024 Summit of the Future, the Pact for the Future, along with its annexes—the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations—is the most wide-ranging international agreement in decades. It aims to make the international system more inclusive, effective, and fit for 21st-century challenges.

The Pact covers a broad range of themes, including peace and security, sustainable development, climate action, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and the transformation of global governance.

The UN Youth Office is leading efforts to implement Chapter IV of the Pact, which focuses on youth, working alongside UN entities, partners, Member States and civil society to translate commitments into concrete actions. Since the beginning, the participation of young people has been embedded into this process, serving as an example of meaningful co-leadership and showing how youth can actively shape policies and decisions alongside UN partners. This approach reinforces the Pact for the Future’s call for meaningful youth participation, ensuring that young people’s voices, experiences and priorities guide global action.

To deliver on the ambitious recommendations of the Pact, the Youth Office launched three taskforces under the leadership of the Working Group on Youth.

Ensuring that young people have real influence in decision-making is a core objective of the Pact. In line with Action 37(d), which calls for “the Secretary-General to continue to develop core principles, in consultation with Member States and young people, for meaningful, representative, inclusive and safe youth engagement in relevant intergovernmental processes and across the work of the United Nations," the UN Youth Office is working with partners to establish updated principles for meaningful youth participation, grounded in consultations with youth, UN Member States, UN entities and civil society.

These principles reflect current expectations and standards on how youth can engage effectively in intergovernmental processes and global decision-making.

Supporting young people with the resources they need to lead change is critical. In response to Action 34(a) of the Pact for the Future, which calls on the Secretary-General to advance proposals for a global youth investment mechanism, the UN Youth Office is working with partners to design a Global Youth Investment Platform (GYIP) — a flexible, youth-driven mechanism to mobilize funding for youth-led solutions.

The platform aims to:

• Provide accessible funding for first-time fund seekers, informal groups and micro-initiatives.

• Promote equity and inclusion, reaching young women, displaced and refugee youth, youth with disabilities, rural and Indigenous communities.

• Offer scalable pathways linking successful youth-led initiatives to national development frameworks, decent work policies and blended financing opportunities.

In line with Action 37(c) of the Pact for the Future, which calls on the Secretary-General to encourage contributions to the UN Youth Fund, the UN Youth Office is working with partners to create a plan for increasing visibility and raising awareness of the Fund. This effort focuses in particular on expanding reach and participation from underrepresented regions and communities.

Key elements of this work include:

• Leveraging digital tools and social media to promote the fund;

• Highlighting youth success stories to attract new donors;

• Using intergovernmental forums like the ECOSOC Youth Forum to expand outreach;

• Producing impact briefs for Member States and UN partners.