UN Charter Dialogues Report

A monumental act of creation took place in San Francisco at the War Memorial Opera House and Veterans Building from April 25, 1945, to June 26, 1945: after two months of negotiations and consultations the United Nations Charter was signed by all 53 delegations. To commemorate this event, the United Nations Association, USA, San Francisco and its partners, University of San Francisco School of Management and Evolutionary Futures Lab, convened at the San Francisco War Memorial Veterans Building to discuss how the evolving world is putting the Charter into practice.

We celebrated the 79th Anniversary of the founding of the U.N. Charter Day this June 25, 2024, by hosting a Young Professional World Café , convening 20 global delegates rom Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States of America to discuss the importance of the U.N. Charter as an instrument of global peace and security, and addressed today’s pressing challenges including exploration of ways for the younger generation to influence our collective future.

Among the distinguished speakers who shared opening remarks with our young professional delegation were Mr. Rabih El-Haddad, the Director of the Division for Multilateral Diplomacy at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), Dr. Courtney Masterson, Associate Dean of the University of San Francisco School of Management, and Ashley Raveche President of United Nations Association, USA, San Francisco.

A tailored version of the participatory process called World Café was used to combine the benefits of small group conversations and cross-pollination of diverse perspectives of the group-at-large. During the World Café, participants and delegates rotated across several virtual breakout rooms to share their perspectives, link ideas, identify patterns, and articulate insights. After that group representatives worked with five Rapporteurs to come up with summaries of the conversations. All participants and delegates had an opportunity to add to the summaries by filling out a Google form if they felt that something important was missing.

All summaries and comments were processed into a collective narrative in accordance with the Collective Narrative Methodology. Every idea included in this report can be traced back to the summaries shared by the Rapporteurs or the comments submitted by participants and delegates. Likewise, every idea shared by the Rapporteurs or properly submitted by a participant or a delegate was included in this report. UNA-SF does not automatically endorse any ideas presented in this report but it is committed to making voices of all participants and delegates heard.