The UN Secretariat has launched a toolkit to support public participation in the commemoration of the organization’s 75th anniversary (UN75) in 2020. The toolkit for ‘Forward Looking Conversation to Reimagine our Future’ poses three main questions: (1) What kind of future do people want to create? (2) Is the international community on track to realize that future? and (3) What action is needed to bridge that gap? It is meant to foster discourse within what the UN Secretariat has called “the largest and furthest-reaching global conversation ever on building the future we want.”  

The toolkit is available on the UN75 website. Within the framework of UN75 campaign, the toolkit is meant to encourage people, ideally in all 193 UN Member States, to think of ways that enhanced international cooperation could bring about a better world by 2045, the UN’s 100th birthday. It also aims to create a common vision and a shared understanding of the threats to that future, as well as of the modalities to address these challenges. The UN75 website also provides issue briefs, a branding package with logos that can be used for the occasion, as well as news and events and responses to frequently asked questions. 

The toolkit specifies that UN75 will be “a year of listening and learning,” with UN organizations, UN country teams (UNCTs) and stakeholders invited to take three main actions:

• Connect people by bringing together diverse groups, “especially those not often heard,” to shape a new global dialogue, with UN country offices called to start multi-stakeholder conversations as early as late 2019;
• Amplify the voice of the people through, inter alia, posting videos on UN75’s social media platform, taking and sharing UN75’s short survey, organizing informal conversations, social media chats, online discussions and formal focus groups; and
• Inspire action, provide feedback, and share and advocate solutions, as a global platform to illustrate key outcomes of discussions is being developed by the UN75 team and the views and ideas will be presented to world leaders and senior UN officials at the high-level meeting of heads of state and government in New York on 21 September 2020, which will be dedicated to UN’s 75th anniversary.

The UN75 toolkit also provides several resources to “get the conversation started,” including videos, podcasts, social media tools, branding guidelines, and fact sheets on what have been identified as the most pressing issues to be addressed by the global conversation: new technologies; inequality; the climate crisis; shifting demographics; and a new era of conflict and violence.

People can participate in the UN75 Global conversation through: a short online survey; physical and online dialogues held in collaboration with partners; their own dialogues; and an online feedback form to capture the results of dialogue (with the option to provide feedback via partners for those without internet access). [UN75 Website] [UN75 Toolkit] [SDG Knowledge Hub Story on Public Consultation on Global Vision for 2045]