Summit of the Future No 23: Letter from Co-facilitators for Declaration on Future Generations Zero Draft, dated 26 March 2024

The UN Secretary-General has circulated a letter from Ambassadors Brian Wallace, of Jamaica and Yoka Brandt, of the Netherlands, co-facilitators on the Declaration on Future Generations.

In their letter, the co-facilitators state that they have taken into account the inputs received from Member States in developing the zero draft of the Pact for the Future, but make no mention about the contributions from stakeholders and civil society. These can be found on the Summit of the Future (SOTF) website. 

According to the co-facilitators, the zero draft is “a well-balanced foundation for [the] intergovernmental negotiations” and the goal will be “an ambitious, future-proof, and action-oriented Declaration..” to be adopted at the SOTF as an annex to the Pact for the Future.

The draft will be presented on 8 April 2024, during which session Member States can make brief general comments and subsequently written inputs until 19 April 2024. The roadmap for the process has updated as follows:

Date	Time	Objective	Venue
8 Apr	3pm- 6 pm	Presentation of zero draft	Trusteeship Council Chamber (TCC)
19 Apr		Deadline for submission of written inputs by Member States
3 May	10 am –1 pm	First reading	TCC
31 May		Issuance of REV2
10 Jun	10 am –1 pm	Second reading	TCC
17 Jun		Issuance of REV3
26 Jun	10 am –1 pm	Third reading	TCC

There will possibly be a fourth reading in July aiming to “ensure clarity and comprehensiveness of the Declaration, aligning it closely with [their] collective vision.’

Comment from Commat: While we normally aim to provide information, on occasions such as this we also like to make comments.

For stakeholders and civil society, the issues included in the zero draft are of important and ones on which they have both expertise and experience. Yet there is no reference to opportunities for their inputs, oral and written. Commat has therefore written to the co-facilitators advisers asking for information on this. If you wish to be associated with any future related correspondence, please send an email to (ADD email address we are using) to that effect including name of organization, country in which you are based, and the name and position of the signing.

Marianne Haslegrave

Director

Commonwealth Medical Trust (Commat)