Global Citizen is the world’s largest movement of action takers and impact makers dedicated to getting the world on track to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals and end extreme poverty by 2030. With 10 million monthly advocates, Global Citizens post, tweet, message, vote, sign, and call to inspire those who can make things happen to act — government leaders, businesses, philanthropists, artists, and citizens — together improving lives. In 2020, with the growing spread of COVID-19, Global Citizen immediately realized that this virus would have a massive impact on the ability to reach the goal of ending extreme poverty. Estimates have stated that the economic impact of COVID-19 could force an additional 150 million people into extreme poverty, and push those who are already struggling into a deeper hole. Global Citizen immediately pivoted their work to lead the global response.

When “Global Goal: Unite for Our Future” was conceived, the world was finally starting to focus on the injustices marginalized communities face due to systemic disenfranchisement and racism. Global Citizen believes that one of the most important steps to unraveling institutional bias and extreme poverty is to improve equitable access to healthcare. To address the intersectional inequalities faced across the world, Global Citizen focused on strengthening health systems and access to health care. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities around the globe and has caused untold health and socioeconomic turmoil. As part of the Global Goal campaign, Global Citizen sought to raise billions of dollars in commitments to develop treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, to make global health systems stronger so that everyone, everywhere can access these tools, and to build back toward the SDGs.

The purpose of the “Global Goal: Unite for Our Future” campaign was to challenge global governments, philanthropists and the private sector to contribute the funds needed to provide tests, treatments and vaccines for everyone, everywhere. The campaign centered on a worldwide pledging summit to anchor the global response to the pandemic, and to mobilize the tens of billions of dollars in the funding still needed to combat COVID-19, make tests, treatments, and vaccines available and protect the world's most fragile health systems and communities. To cap off the effort and drive action, Global Citizen also produced the “Global Goal: Unite for Our Future” broadcast, to celebrate the success of the pledging campaign, raise awareness, and drive further action.

Global Citizen teamed up with the European Commission to implement and execute “Global Goal: Unite for Our Future.” Along with Ursula von der Leyen, Global Citizen activated their audiences all over the world to take action, calling on world leaders, corporations, and philanthropists to step up their funding efforts to ensure COVID-19 solutions are available to everyone, everywhere. They used email, social media, and innovative platforms to educate and engage them around the tenets of the campaign. They also reached out to dozens of world leaders, philanthropists and corporate partners to create a united global response.

Combining policy and entertainment, “Global Goal: Unite for Our Future” aired in more than 180 countries, and streamed globally across YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. The campaign brought together 41 governments including Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Italy, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Russian Federation, South Korea, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, State of Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. The campaign also included key philanthropic and corporate commitments.

After the pledging campaign and summit, the broadcast was hosted by Dwayne Johnson and featured performances by Coldplay, J Balvin, Jennifer Hudson, Justin Bieber and Quavo, Lin-Manuel Miranda and select members of the Original Broadway Production of HAMILTON with Jimmy Fallon & The Roots, Miley Cyrus, Shakira, Usher and more.

“Global Goal: Unite for Our Future” mobilized $6.9 billion toward ensuring everyone, everywhere would have access to COVID-19 treatments. $1.5 billion of the funds went to address the health-related impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the broader effects of the pandemic on those living in poverty; and $5.4 billion were committed in loans and guarantees to support the world’s most fragile economies. Because of this effort, the goal is for 250 million vaccine doses to be made available to the world's poorest countries. The “Global Goal: Unite for Our Future” campaign also brought together a historic coalition of global leaders in the service of a single goal - addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. Up until this point, the world’s pandemic response was largely focused on individual countries’ suppression methods. This was the first time the world came together in such a public manner to address it.