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ACUNS Annual Meeting 2025 & ANUMDI Dialogue

Event Summary

Contributed by ACUNS, Global Governance Innovation Network

Posted 16 July 2025

   

This year's meeting explored the intersections of environmental governance, social justice, and economic development while addressing the triple planetary crisis: climate change, nature loss, and pollution.

Check out the latest Global Policy Dialogue Outcome Report

ACUNS Annual Meeting 2025

Environmental Multilateralism & Human Development | Nairobi, Kenya | Monday, 23 June – Wednesday, 25 June 2025

Check out these recordings of the ACUNS sessions

The 2025 ACUNS Annual Conference in Nairobi addressed the triple planetary crisis—climate change, nature loss, and pollution—within the context of increasing global conflict and deepening inequalities. As the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and home to the UN Environment Assembly, Nairobi serves as the global center for multilateral deliberations on environmental governance. This year's theme highlighted the critical role of multilateral environmental agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the forthcoming Global Plastics Treaty, in addressing these interconnected crises. The conference explored how multilateralism must evolve to integrate environmental and social justice, focusing on inclusivity, transparency, and consensus-building. Discussions examined the intersections of environmental sustainability, social justice, and economic development and explored the roles of small states, Indigenous communities, international organizations, and civil society in shaping a resilient and just future. Participants assessed the challenges and opportunities in strengthening global agreements and addressing the disproportionate impacts of environmental degradation on vulnerable populations while also examining how environmental governance can contribute to conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and global stability.

GGIN's ACUNS Spotlight

The Global Policy Dialogue (GPD) on the Triple Planetary Crisis and Future of Environmental Governance, held as part of the ACUNS Annual Meeting 2025 in Nairobi, brought together global experts and policymakers to assess the failures of fragmented climate, biodiversity, and pollution. The sessions were closely aligned with the launch of the Global Governance Innovation Report 2025, the Pact for the Future monitoring panel, and civil society dialogues, collectively driving actionable, evidence-based policy proposals for COP-30, the G20 Summit, and the Pact's implementation review.

Global Policy Dialogue on Environmental Governance and Climate Action

Building on the Global Governance Innovation Network's annual series, this year's Global Policy Dialogue at the ACUNS Annual Meeting spoke specifically to themes of environmental governance and climate action, with an eye to better governing and preserving our planetary boundaries.

Objectives:

  • To expand the knowledge base for more capable global institutions to better cope with existing and emerging environmental challenges and to create new opportunities through effective global action, including with scholars, policy researchers and advocates, and the private sector.
  • To convene leading policy researchers, practitioners, and advocates to debate and recommend specific global institutional, policy, legal, normative, and operational innovations that could follow through on the agenda of the Pact for the Future, adopted by the United Nations Summit of the Future in September 2024.
  • To make targeted recommendations for mobilizing support and operationalizing global environmental commitments–including the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda, and others–in shifting geopolitical climates.

Second Annual Meeting of ANUMDI: The African Research Network to Advance Regional and Global Governance

BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION

From 4-6 March 2024, a group of scholars and policy advocates from across Africa and the world gathered in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss the future of Africa and African perspectives for the UN Summit of the Future, held from 22-24 September 2024 in New York. The Africa Summit of the Future Dialogue, organized by the Abuja-based Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development (SCDDD) with the support of the Washington DC-based Stimson Center and eighteen other African and global partner institutions, drew together scholars and practitioners from Africa and friends across the globe to discuss and consider regional and global governance innovation proposals for the benefit of Africa and other regions. 

The conference examined in-depth the implications for Africa from the performance of regional and global institutions in five thematic areas, namely: i) Peace, Security, and Defence; ii) Sustainable Development and Democratic Governance; iii) Human Rights and Humanitarian Action; iv) Climate Governance; and v) Rules-based World Order and the Place of Africa in Global Governance. For each group, women, youth, technology, and culture serve as cross-cutting issues.

At the close of the Africa Summit of the Future Dialogue, the Abuja Declaration was adopted by participants with recommendations on the future of Africa-wide and global governance. The conference further initiated a network of African Researchers to pursue the implementation of its recommendations and encourage research on the development and advocacy of new African policy perspectives to advance regional and global innovation. During a follow-on strategy session at the United Nations Civil Society Conference in Support of the Summit of the Future (held from 9-10 May 2024 at the UN Centre in Nairobi), the  group was subsequently named“ANUMDI,” a unique and evocative acronym combining words in the Swahili (from East/South Africa), Hausa (from West Africa), and English to denote“African Network for Regional and Global Governance Innovation.”

On the sidelines of the the Academic Council on the UN System Annual Meeting, partners will convene a Second Annual Meeting of ANUMDI immediately from Sunday, 22 June 2025 until mid-afternoon on Monday, 23 2025 on the theme of“Advancing the Summit of the Future, G20, and AU's 2063 Agendas: The Role of African Scholars and Policy Advocates.”Besides leveraging the ACUNS Annual Meeting 2025, ANUMDI aspires to engage closely with both the South African-led Think Tank 20 (T20) network in support of the South African-chaired G20 in 2025, as well as support with applied research and policy dialogue the initiatives of His Excellency Philemon Yunji Yang of Cameroon, Seventy-Ninth President of the General Assembly (September 2024 – September 2025). 

Objectives:

  • To convene leading policy researchers, practitioners, and advocates from Africa and around the world to debate and recommend specific regional and global institutional, policy, legal, normative, and operational innovations that could inform the agenda—and help to raise the ambition—of the G20 South Africa Summit (22-23 November 2025) and follow-through to the September 2024 Summit of the Future and African Union’s 2063 agenda, giving special attention to African perspectives and innovation priorities.
  • To further develop the new ANUMDI platform for African policy researchers, scholars, and advocates to critically discuss and advance policy research on“What Africa Wants” and the type of relationship the Continent needs to have with the United Nations, G20, and international financial institutions.
  • To strengthen the African Union, African Regional Economic Communities, G20, and UN system collaboration, including through the Pact for the Future, Global Digital Compact, Declaration on Future Generations, and New Agenda for Peace.

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