On June 22 and 23, we will be gathering in Paris for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact. Our shared mission: to galvanize awareness and investment for the implementation of the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, everywhere, especially in the most vulnerable countries.
In this “age of consequences,” fraught with the effects of climate change and deepening inequalities, there is an urgent need to take care of our societies and our economies. We need to amplify innovation and overhaul our economic and financial systems, and it’s essential to renew the dialogue between the worlds of science, finance, and international cooperation to ensure that our public policies are just and sustainable.
This is the ambition of the signatories of this declaration, in all their diversity. We wish to join forces within a single network, with all those wishing to help us make Paris a fruitful forum for global governance, a hub of solutions for sustainable development, and a place where artificial intelligence will be deployed to facilitate the implementation of the SDGs.
Paris has a unique ecosystem. It comprises a large number of schools and research and higher education institutions, producing generations of brilliant students and researchers. Gathered around the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, as the leading multilateral organization, and the International Organization of La Francophonie, they are pursuing a vast range of initiatives tied to the science of sustainable development.
The universal mission of UNESCO will be reinforced with the announced return of the United States, and with the forging of concrete, innovative solutions, notably for the ethical use of AI, and soon, of neurotechnologies.
For its part, the International Energy Agency is forging a path to accelerate energy transitions and meet global energy and climate targets.
Paris also has a great number of actors engaged in the transformation of our economies and our financial systems, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Chamber of Commerce to the Council of Europe Development Bank, the Agence Française de Développement Group, and many others. They have all been transforming their modes of action since the success of the conference of the parties COP 21 in 2015.
In the approach to the next major international gathering, we are all joining forces to make Paris a great crucible of collective actions for sustainable development, around a common program, open to all the actors in Paris, and in partnership with other capitals of global governance, from New York to Rome, and from Jakarta to Nairobi. What unites us is one overarching objective: To work tirelessly to mobilize the goodwill of all to accelerate the agenda for sustainable development and international solidarity.
This opinion piece has been co-authored by:
Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO; Mathias Cormann, secretary-general of OECD; Fatih Birol, executive director of IEA; John Denton, secretary-general of ICC; Louise Mushikiwabo, secretary-general of OIF; Carlo Monticelli, governor of CEB; and Rémy Rioux, chief executive officer of AFD.
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