Op-ed: What Does the Summit of the Future Mean for Bahrain?

On 22-23 September, the United Nations will host the Summit of the Future in New York. This unprecedented global event will bring together world leaders to explore the best ways to address the escalating global threats of extreme poverty, hunger, increasing global emissions that lead to catastrophic climate change, health crises, conflicts, and rising displacement. These threats endanger international peace and security and hinder the development prospects of billions of people. The prevailing climate of widespread mistrust, accompanied by unprecedented levels of disinformation, misinformation, and hate speech, including online, further underscores the urgency of this Summit.

The Summit aims to advance collective efforts to achieve existing international commitments related to the development agenda and to take concrete steps to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities. World leaders will approve a package of decisions on fundamental issues such as sustainable development, financing for development, international peace and security, science, technology, innovation, digital cooperation, youth and future generations, and transforming global governance.

Since these threats are global in nature and do not respect national borders, effective international cooperation is essential to confront them and leverage the opportunities globalization presents for achieving common goals. The Summit of the Future will strive to achieve this by adapting the global governance system to our rapidly changing world, aiming to create a better world for future generations.

For Bahrain, the Summit represents an important opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to a sustainable and better future for its youth, to exercise its voice as a UN member state in advocating for a better, safer, and more sustainable future for every young person in all countries of the world, and to promote its commitment to peaceful coexistence, respect, and religious tolerance, while calling for the same values everywhere.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the bedrock of international peace and security. I had the opportunity to highlight this once again during my participation in May at the fifth edition of the World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum (WEIF), hosted by Bahrain under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, concurrently with the 33rd Arab Summit. I underscored tangible SDG acceleration actions to scale up SDG implementation through initiatives undertaken by governments and non-governmental actors, and how the private sector, in particular, can contribute through entrepreneurship, risk-taking, innovation, and knowledge.

Delegates attending the WEIF endorsed the "Manama Declaration," calling on the international community, including stakeholders from both the public and private sectors, to harness the power of entrepreneurship and innovation to achieve the SDGs, with a focus on women, youth, and people with disabilities. The declaration recognized the importance of an integrated approach and the crucial role of financial institutions and active private sector engagement in achieving the

SDGs, and called for promoting promising sectors, such as the creative economy known as the "orange economy," and digital transformation, including artificial intelligence.

Such recommendations could enrich the discussions at the Summit of the Future. Bahrain is well-positioned to present these ideas as the custodian of the Declaration. Furthermore, Bahrain's role in fostering SDG 17, "Partnerships for the Goals," is evident in the level of international partnerships the Kingdom has established to achieve global objectives. Finally, as a leading nation in innovation and digital transformation, Bahrain is well-prepared to share its best practices, like the Bahrain Digital Innovation Country Profile, completed in 2023 with support from the United Nations. Promoting innovation and entrepreneurship for the SDGs through engagement with youth in schools and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises is another success story worth highlighting. The United Nations is looking forward to Bahrain’s contribution and active involvement in this key gathering for multilateral cooperation.

By Khaled El-Mekwad, UN Resident Coordinator in Bahrain