Global Goals Yearbook 2018
The future of the United Nations is more uncertain than at any time before. Like his predecessors, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has promised to reform the United Nations. Drivers are two major agreements: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Accord. Both stand for a move away from statal top-down multilateralism towards new form of partnership between the public and the private sector as well as the civil society. The Global Goals Yearbook, published under the auspices of the macondo foundation, therefore covers „Partnership for the Goals“ as its 2018 main topic. Our world is truly not sustainable at this time. To make the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a success story, we need an enormous increase in effort. This cannot happen without help from the private sector. But businesses need a reason to contribute as well as attractive partnerships that are based on win-win constellations. We have no alternative but to rethink the role that public–private partnerships can play in this effort. That is why United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is calling upon UN entities to strengthen and better align their private-sector engagement. In every change there is a new chance. The Global Goals Yearbook 2018 discusses the multiple aspects of how private sector engagement can be improved. Recommendations are, among others, to revise multilaterism, partnership models and processes and to invest more in trust, a failure culture as well as metrics and monitoring. When businesses engage in partnerships for the Goals, this is more than just signing checks. It means inserting the “do good” imperative of the SDGs into corporate culture, business cases, innovation cycles, investor relationships, and, of course, the daily management processes and (extra-)financial reporting. The Yearbook includes arguments from academic and business experts, the World Bank and the Club of Rome as well as UN entities, among them UNDP, UNSSC, UNOPS, UN JIU, and UN DESA.
The future of the United Nations is more uncertain than at any time before. Like his predecessors, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has promised to reform the United Nations. Drivers are two major agreements: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Accord. Both stand for a move away from statal top-down multilateralism towards new form of partnership between the public and the private sector as well as the civil society. The Global Goals Yearbook, published under the auspices of the macondo foundation, therefore covers „Partnership for the Goals“ as its 2018 main topic.
Our world is truly not sustainable at this time. To make the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a success story, we need an enormous increase in effort. This cannot happen without help from the private sector. But businesses need a reason to contribute as well as attractive partnerships that are based on win-win constellations.
We have no alternative but to rethink the role that public–private partnerships can play in this effort. That is why United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is calling upon UN entities to strengthen and better align their private-sector engagement. In every change there is a new chance.
The Global Goals Yearbook 2018 discusses the multiple aspects of how private sector engagement can be improved. Recommendations are, among others, to revise multilaterism, partnership models and processes and to invest more in trust, a failure culture as well as metrics and monitoring.
When businesses engage in partnerships for the Goals, this is more than just signing checks. It means inserting the “do good” imperative of the SDGs into corporate culture, business cases, innovation cycles, investor relationships, and, of course, the daily management processes and (extra-)financial reporting.
The Yearbook includes arguments from academic and business experts, the World Bank and the Club of Rome as well as UN entities, among them UNDP, UNSSC, UNOPS, UN JIU, and UN DESA.
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TRENDSETTER: KEEP THE<br />
COAST CLEAN INITIATIVE<br />
At the Arab African International Bank (AAIB), we believe in the symbiotic relationship between<br />
the environment and the economy. Accordingly, our mandate as a financial institution extends<br />
to maintaining several environmental initiatives.<br />
By Dalia Noureldin, AAIB<br />
We believe community involvement is<br />
essential to achieving the protection and<br />
conservation of natural and cultural<br />
heritage along coastlines. Therefore, we<br />
launched the Keep the Coast Clean (KCC)<br />
environmental initiative in the summer<br />
of 2015 to encourage community stewardship<br />
of coastal areas in Egypt. We<br />
believe community involvement fosters<br />
this stewardship and helps in restoring<br />
Egyptian beaches to their former condition.<br />
For three consecutive years, AAIB<br />
has led the financial industry with this<br />
environmental movement by focusing<br />
on rectifying the passive role of individuals<br />
and enhancing activists’ knowledge<br />
about the variety of ways to preserve<br />
the environment.<br />
The initiative aims at magnifying the<br />
damage caused to our coasts and seas<br />
by litter from land-based recreation.<br />
Accordingly, the first step was to raise<br />
awareness about the detrimental impacts<br />
of human waste – especially waste that<br />
does not biodegrade easily, thereby polluting<br />
beaches and marine life – and<br />
the extent to which human practices can<br />
significantly harm the environment, sea<br />
creatures, and, eventually, the human<br />
race. The campaign aims at communicating<br />
(especially to children and youth) the<br />
necessity to transform the culture into<br />
one that respects marine life. Hence,<br />
AAIB illustrated the most common waste<br />
items on the coastlines – cigarette butts,<br />
plastic bottles, plastic bags, cans, and<br />
glass bottles – as the “Beach Devils”<br />
in entertaining and easily understood<br />
cartoons targeted to this young audience.<br />
Economy and environment: Two sides<br />
of the same coin<br />
Coastal environmental health is a source<br />
of economic and financial growth. The<br />
economic value of coastlines is significant<br />
and includes: the value of public infrastructure;<br />
the income provided through<br />
tourism, which represents the most<br />
important economic activity in many<br />
coastal areas; and the income generated<br />
from seafood, which is a main source of<br />
animal protein for a significant portion<br />
of the population. In addition, coastal<br />
waters are the foundation for many economic<br />
activities that are essential to<br />
society and local economies; fisheries<br />
contribute to growing employment rates<br />
and GDP in many areas.<br />
However, despite its ecological, social,<br />
and economic importance, the marine<br />
environment is deteriorating fast. Coasts<br />
are threatened by land-based pollutants.<br />
The combined impacts of climate change<br />
and growing populations in coastal areas<br />
have placed costal ecosystems under<br />
severe pressure. Our growth will not<br />
continue if coasts continue to deteriorate.<br />
KCC and the UN SDGs<br />
Although launched before the UN<br />
Sustainable Development <strong>Goals</strong><br />
(SDGs), the KCC initiative mirrors<br />
7 of the 17 SDGs as follows: SDG<br />
3, SDG 6, SDG 8, SDG 11, SDG 14,<br />
SDG 15 and SDG 17.<br />
Starting from the bottom: Awarenesscreation<br />
In 2015, AAIB launched KCC as an antilitter<br />
awareness campaign with a vision<br />
to educate the public about marine<br />
debris and the damage caused to the<br />
environment due to bad littering habits.<br />
A competition was begun on social<br />
media to encourage people to adopt<br />
an environment-friendly lifestyle. Out<br />
of 184 participants, there were 14 winners.<br />
AAIB also had a strong presence<br />
in several compounds on Egypt’s north<br />
coast, making clay ashtrays available for<br />
cigarette butts as well as 50 recycling<br />
bins for waste to keep the beaches clean.<br />
Toward a cultural change<br />
In 2016, the scope of KCC expanded into<br />
a more intensive campaign aimed at cre-<br />
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<strong>Global</strong> <strong>Goals</strong> <strong>Yearbook</strong> <strong>2018</strong>
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