On 26 March 2025, the United Nations said it had established six working groups to implement the Pact for the Future, giving tomorrow the reassuring sensation that it has been divided into manageable portions and assigned a room with a flipchart.
The Pact has a principal level steering committee and six groups covering sustainable development goals, peace and security, international finance, digital technologies, United Nations governance and youth. The same UN remarks separately set out four broad areas of focus for the work ahead. The future is advancing at a speed best measured by the number of folders into which it has been placed.
At the entirely invented Secretariat of Big Tomorrows, policy steward Gloria Horizon welcomed the structure. In this satire, she explains that six folders have been coordinated into one larger folder marked action pending. It is the sort of breakthrough that allows an institution to admire its own filing system while the emergency waits beside the photocopier.
The arrangement is intended to turn broad commitments into practical progress. That is admirable. Practical progress has nevertheless been asked to remain outside while the steering committee decides which group is responsible for greeting it.
Digital technology has received its own group, presumably because it already knows how to connect people to meetings they cannot find. Youth has received a seat at the table, provided it can complete the registration form, locate the table and prove that its future has been approved by the present.
Peace and security will sit alongside international financial architecture, which should save time. Both subjects concern enormous structures that remain upright because everyone has agreed not to ask who is responsible for maintenance, insurance or the alarming noise beneath the floor.
Chief Coordinator of Eventual Things Lionel Outlook is also invented for this piece. His contribution to the satire is that urgency remains central, provided implementation begins with introductions, a follow up meeting and a review of whether the first meeting achieved sufficient meeting.
The Pact has turned the future into a visiting delegation. It has arrived with serious concerns, been issued a lanyard and been told that its appointment follows introductions. By the time tomorrow reaches the front desk, a new working group will have been formed to decide whether it is still relevant, then another to schedule that decision.
Real story: United Nations Secretary General remarks, 26 March 2025.
