1. Reforming the UN: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres assumed his five-year term exactly one year ago, putting reform, prevention, and peace at the heart of his agenda.
  2. Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals: The current pace of progress must accelerate to achieve the SDGs over the next 12 years. 2018 should be the year when actors step up their efforts around implementation.
  3. Accelerating Climate Action: A seminal moment will be when state and local leaders, businesses, scientists, students, and nonprofit organizations come together for the inaugural Global Climate Action Summit in September in California.
  4. Growing Private Sector Engagement: the Business & Sustainable Development Commission’s work has been critical in helping to quantify the $12 trillion in market opportunities for companies aligning with the SDGs.
  5. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Turns 70: This year is an opportunity to infuse the 30 Articles of the Declaration throughout many work streams, from UN reform, to maintaining momentum on the SDGs, to putting conflict prevention at the center of the UN’s work, to Compacts around Migration and Refugees
  6. A Focus on Migration and Refugees: This year, the international community will negotiate a first-ever Global Compact for Migration.
  7. Gender Equality and Women’s Rights Progress: Advocacy for the collection and use of complete, unbiased gender data to monitor progress for women and girls will play an increasingly important role.

Read the full article on 2018 by Kaysie Brown at United Nations Foundation