Secretary-General António Guterres (right) meets with Dennis Francis, President of the78th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Few key facts you should know:

What is it? The UN General Assembly is the main legislative body of the United Nations with the purpose of keeping international peace and security by representing all UN Member States.

When did it start? The first General Assembly was all the way back in 1946 on January 10th in London with only 51 countries present, which is a lot less than the current 193 members and numerous nonmembers such as the Vatican, the African Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Palestine who maintain observer status but still able to participate in the work of the General Assembly.

How does it work? Each UN Member States has the chance to vote and key decisions on international peace, security, new member admittance, and the UN budget are decided by a two-thirds majority.

The 78th UN General Assembly opened on September 5, 2023 with a quote by UN Secretary-General António Guterres: "Despite our long list of global challenges, that same spirit of determination can guide us forward. Let us be determined to heal divisions and forge peace. Determined to uphold the dignity and worth of every person. Determined to realize the Sustainable Development Goals and leave no one behind. Determined to reform multilateralism for the 21st century and come together for the common good. " Considering this, the world leaders had many important global topics that needed to be discussed throughout the High-level week (from September 18th to the 26th, 2023).

In this article we will discuss the key events of the High-level week, which are: the SDG Summit, the Climate Ambition Summit, and the High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage.

1. SDGs Summit

On 18-19 September 2023, the SDG summit took place at UN headquarters in New York. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals was created in 2015 by the United Nations to foster a just and equitable world by 2023. These goals:

are known as a blueprint for a more sustainable, prosperous, and peaceful future.
range from No Poverty to Clean Water & Sanitation to Partnership for the Goals.
are interconnected, so by achieving one goal, many other goals will progress and benefit.

During this final Decade of Action, UN member states have been urged to take more immediate action for the goals. The 2023 SDG summit marked the halfway point for achieving the 2023 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The summit responded to various crises, modified the agenda, and instilled hope for the 2030 Agenda.

At the summit, the United Nations published the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) 2030. Of the 36 select targets listed in the Executive Report, only two of the targets are on track to be obtained by 2030. On the other hand, 8 of the selected targets have faced deterioration. Member states have negotiated an acceleration to achieve the goals and have convened at the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development to discuss funding for the Sustainable Development Goals. Also, a Political Declaration has been established through the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) to foster unity among member states in solving the goals. Swift action is needed by UN member states to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

2. Climate Ambition Summit

The UN Secretary-General’s Climate Ambition Summit pursued to show that around the world, governments, business, finance, local authorities, and civil society (first doers and first movers) came with credible actions, policies and plans. This was done to ensure the acceleration of decarbonation of the global economy. This movement of first doers and first movers is known as the Summit of Hope

The Summit this year has demonstrated ways in which climate justice can be delivered and how emissions can be cut. All these methods are backed up by science and have been aligned with plans with the sectoral, local, national, international policies. This will create an increase in decarbonation, advance climate justice and fairness, create a renewed focus on credibility and accountability.

Government leaders will be expected to present updated Nationally Determined Contributions for 2030, updated net-zero targets, and plans for commitments to new coal, oil and gas; fossil fuel phase-out plans, plans for fossil fuel phase-outs, Green Climate Fund pledges; and economy-wide plans on adaptation and resilience.

All the G20 governments will be asked to commit by presenting a more ambitious economy-wide Nationally Determined Contributions featuring absolute emissions cuts and covering all gases, by 2025.

3. Health’s Meetings

The Covid-19 Pandemic, exacerbating the stark inequalities within and among countries and regions in access to vaccines and worsening the lack of access to life-saving and health of millions of people, has redesigned the political agenda as the first and only priority since 2019.

This year, however, the UN General Assembly 2023 created an historical opportunity for world leaders to finally place health back on the high-level political agenda as they recommit to ending tuberculosis, delivering universal health coverage and strengthening pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.

The issue's debate started within the High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR) on the 20th September. It mainly consisted of two multi-stakeholders panels in which Member States discussed how to ensure equity through governance and multi-sectoral coordination at all levels, calling to action finance and investments.

It followed, on September 21st, the High-level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage (HLM). This meeting relied on the resolution A/RES/74/2 adopted in September 2019 by Heads of State and Government when declaring the right of every human being, without distinction of any kind, to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Yet, the HLM, lessons learned from Covid-19, reviewed the previous declaration by identifying gaps and evidence-based recommendations in order to accelerate progress towards the achievement of universal health coverage by 2030. In addition, the Group of Friends of UHC and Global Health platform, organized technical briefings and thematic dialogue series, providing updates on the latest data, evidence, and policy recommendations.

“Advancing science, finance and innovation, and their benefits, to urgently end the global tuberculosis epidemic, in particular, by ensuring equitable access to prevention, testing, treatment and care.” This is the theme of the last health’s meeting: High-level Meeting on the Fight against Tuberculosis. On 22 September 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO), the office of the President of the General Assembly, the Co-facilitators, Member States and partners committed to develop and implement ambitious costed national tuberculosis strategic plans or national health strategies with multisectoral approaches (for instance the improvement of registration and vital statistics registers (CRVS), to allow for tracking of the tuberculosis epidemic) and to strengthen the meaningful engagement of parliaments, civil society, the educational system and tuberculosis-affected local communities, in all aspects of the tuberculosis response.

Since the 78th General Assembly is an essential milestone towards achieving the 2030 Agenda and dealing with global issues, the week ended with a further sight towards the future. Together, all the global leaders decided that at the 79th UN Session, they will join the Summit of the Future which will be held on September 22-23, 2024.

"How do we cooperate better to deliver on the above aspirations and goals?"

"How do we better meet the needs of the present while also preparing for the challenges of the future?"

These are some of the questions which will be at the center of the discussion at the Summit of the Future. Its goal is to focus on Pact for Future, an action-oriented pact showcasing global solidarity for current and future generations. Moreover, it will focus heavily on getting the SDGs back on track by working on improvements for international cooperation.

This will be a chance to return to the right path, together.