• Key priorities on the global agenda include the Israel–Palestine conflict, advancing gender equality, tackling climate change, and setting international guardrails for artificial intelligence.

As the United Nations (UN) marks 80 years since its founding, world leaders are gathering in New York for the UN General Assembly High-Level Week, beginning September 22, 2025 and end on September 30, 2025.

This year’s theme, “Better Together: 80 Years and More for Peace, Development and Human Rights,” sets the tone for a week of reflection, urgency, and global ambition.

The High-Level Week is the UN’s annual summit where all 193 Member States take the podium during the General Debate. Brazil traditionally opens the session, followed by the United States.

Presiding over the Assembly is Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, only the fifth woman to hold this position in eight decades.

She describes the moment as a chance to preserve what the UN has achieved since 1945 and to renew its mission for the future. “To make us, the UN, fit for the future, fit for purpose. This is the task of our time. Better Together,” she says.

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Key priorities on the global agenda include the Israel–Palestine conflict, advancing gender equality, tackling climate change, and setting international guardrails for artificial intelligence.

The UN will also spotlight urgent action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially as the world reaches the two-thirds mark toward the 2030 deadline.

On September 25, the UN will host its Fourth High-Level Meeting on Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and Mental Health, aiming to adopt a new political declaration for global health equity. A special session will also commemorate 30 years since the Beijing Declaration, reaffirming commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The United Nations was officially founded on October 24, 1945, when its Charter was ratified by the major Allied powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—alongside a majority of other signatories.

The groundwork was laid earlier that year at the San Francisco Conference, where representatives from 50 countries gathered between April 25 and June 26 to draft the Charter.

Born out of the devastation of World War II, the UN was created to prevent future global conflicts, promote peace, and uphold human rights. That’s why October 24 is celebrated annually as United Nations Day.

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