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Yunus Centre Press Release (04 October, 2019)

Call From UN High-Level Side Event on Social Business

The 74th UN General Assembly’s High-Level Side Event on “Social Business, Youth and Technology” was held at the United Nations Head Quarters, New York on September 26th 2019. The theme for this year’s programme was “Innovate Together for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Actions Through Social Business “.

This High-Level Event on Social Business has been organized annually for three consecutive years at the UN headquarters during United Nations General Assembly, to bring together heads of states and ministers, Nobel Laureates, UN SDG Advocates, representatives from UN agencies and international organizations, business and academic leaders from universities and think tanks, innovators, social entrepreneurs and young leaders to boost ambition and accelerate actions in achieving SDGs.

The Global Committee on Social Business for Sustainable Development Goals, chaired by Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, aims to build a global cross-sector and cross-generational partner network to innovate together for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

This year’s  event was hosted by the Government of Ghana, Government of Cape Verde, and Global Committee on Social Business for Sustainable Development Goals, co-sponsored by the Governments of France, Luxembourg, Saint Lucia, in partnership with the Government of Nigeria and co-curated by Yunus Centre, Bangladesh, the Yunus And You Foundation of Germany and Youthink Center of China.

This year’s theme aimed to encourage citizens’ efforts and innovations on climate actions. Opening addresses were made by Hon. Ulisses Correia e Silva, Prime Minister of Cape Verde, H.E. Sunday Dare, Minister of Youth and Sports Development of the Federal Republic Nigeria, former Environment Minister of Brazil and activist Prof. Marina Silva, H.E. Christophe Itier,  French High Commissioner for Social and Solidarity Economy and Social Innovation and Dr. Daniel Gustafson, Deputy Director-General of FAO, Rocky Dawuni, UN Goodwill Ambassador for Africa for UN Environment and Professor Muhammad Yunus.

The focus of the deliberations was to build a global ecosystem to support social business, youth and technology for SDGs, promote cross-sector and generational partnerships for innovation and development while building a global network to support youth on technical innovation through social business. Following the opening session an inter-generational dialogue on citizen’s action for achieving SDGs was held followed by a session on Pact for Impact, a global alliance for social and inclusive economy. Later on partners launched their innovations, made commitments and shared their action plan on Climate Action and achieving sustainable development goals.

Notable speakers included Guilia Braga of Connect4Climate, World Bank Group, Dr. Francois Ekoko, Regional Coordinator for Africa, UN Office for South-South Cooperation, Wang Yuan, Board Member, China Climate Action Network, Juan E. Chebly, Founder and President of the Board of The Give Me 5 Campaign for People and Planet.

A large number of participants joined the debate and shared  their experiences and expectations. Among them were Kartik Desai, Executive Director, Asha Impact, Krishnee Adnarain Appadoo, Co-Founder and CEO, Mind Matters, Giorgio Alberto Franyuti Kelly, Executive Director, Medical IMPACT, Andrise Bass, CEO, PRIS Consulting LLC, Patrick Sciarratta, Program Director, World Development Foundation, Nadine Clopton, Director and Chair of Youth & Intergenerational Subcommittee, UN NGO Executive Committee, David Watson Mwabila, Co - Founder, Dytech Zambia, Keith Agoada, CEO, Producers Market, Emilie McGlone, Director, Peace Boat US, Tatsuya Yoshioka, Founder, Peace Boat.

A separate hall had to be made available near the UN Headquarters, because an overflowing number of pre-registered guests could not be accommodated in the main venue within UN building . This was done at the courtesy of Japan Society, the flow over participants were offered  accommodation at their facilities not far from the UN building. Participants organized their discussions according to the following three topics:

a) Youth@UNGA74: What we will do next? Together and Stronger!

b) Social Business: Sustainable way to build a better world,

c) Technology: Drive transformative change for achieving SDGs faster.

Prominent participants at the Youth@UNGA74 included Miroslav Polzer, CEO, International Association for the Advancement of Innovative Approaches to Global Challenges IAAI, Saffran Mihnar, Director, EarthLanka, Miao Wang,  UN Youth Champion of the Earth 2018, Founder, Better Blue, Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin, Director, Pearls Africa Foundation, Hatim el Otmani, President, Atlas For Development, Mary Kate Costello, Senior Policy Analyst & UN Representative, The Hunger Project, Dina Buchbinder, Founder, Education for Sharing, Nyla Rodgers, Founder and CEO, Mama Hope, Camille Laurente, CEO, Hueman Group Media, Aishu Natasimhadevara, Youth Representative, United Nations Department of Global Communications Youth Representatives Steering Committee, Hamzat B Lawal, CEO, Connected Development CODE, Sérgio Ribeiro, CEO, Planetiers.

Yunus also participated in a high level breakfast event  organized by newly appointed Director General of FAO, Mr Qu Dongyu. CEOs of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and global agricultural institutions and food and agriculture industries were invited to the breakfast to exchange views with the new Director-General. Professor Yunus was invited to  address the guests. He highlighted the issue that rural economy should not be looked as an appendix to the urban economy as supplier of labour to the urban economy. Rural economy should be seen as independent self-reliant dynamic growth centres. Its people should not be viewed as potential labour to be absorbed in the urban economy, they should be seen as entrepreneurs building up the economy of their own, competing with urban economy. It is wrong to categorize people only as farmers, they should be viewed as entrepreneurs all possibilities, including state of the art technology, retailing, transportation etc.

Caption for Photo 2: Professor Muhammad Yunus along with other VVIP guests at a high level breakfast event organized by newly appointed Director General of FAO, Mr. Qu Dongyu.

Appropriate institutions have to be built to support their entrepreneurship. A situation has to be built where routine migration of rural youth to urban centres will come to an end, and urban  economies  will have tough competition in getting labour from rural areas.

In the evening of September 26, Yunus was a special guest of United Nations Environment Pogramme (UNEP) at their Champion of the Earth award ceremony  and dinner, attended by Presidents and Prime ministers, Ministers, business leaders and social activists of various countries. Yunus presented the UNEP Champion of the Earth award to the teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s  core team of youth climate strike movement Fridays for Future in Sweden. Six members of Greta’s team, all of the age of 16 or less,  came to the stage to receive the Award.  Greta Thunberg addressed the ceremony  through a video message. She could not attend the ceremony since she had to leave earlier in the day  for Montreal, Canada by bus to lead the Friday for Future March in Montreal.

This award was given for remarkable ability to galvanize action and attention around the topic of climate change around the world.  Other winners of the award were the country of Costa Rica, climate scientist Professor Katharine Hayhoe, the company Patagonia, Chinese mobile app Ant Forest, who were honoured for their remarkable achievements towards environmental protection.

Caption for Photo 3:  Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus presented the UNEP Champion of the Earth award to the teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s core team of youth climate strike movement, Fridays for Future from Sweden.

Professor Yunus spoke at Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative’s  gala dinner and reception on the next day,  hosted by its founder, SDG Advocate,  UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation, and famous Hollywood actor  Forest Whitaker. Host committee of the dinner included his friend Professor  Yunus and many other  dignitaries including  award winning Hollywood actor De Caprio, award winning American hip hop star Swizz Beatz, Grady Spivey, CEO and founder of Full Surface Management, an innovative music marketing firm which  defined the careers of many multi platinum recording artists. The dinner was held at the attractively decorated Gotham Hall, at Broadway, New York and attended by 250 distinguished personalities of the US. Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, Co-Chair of SDG Advocates, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, and Professor Yunus addressed the participants. Since Whitaker’s initiatives are focused on the youth in the Uganda, Rwanda , South Sudan, and the USA , Yunus drew attention to the creative power of the new generation of young people, no matter which country they are growing up in. He said youth should be aware of their enormous power as individuals, and get ready to use the power fully. If they don’t use the power it will be wasted away for nothing. He said, it would be like you had Aladin’s lamp in your hand, but you never touched it, gene was never called into action. He emphasized the importance of imagination. He invited them to imagine all the impossible things they wish to see happen. Don’t be afraid or stingy in your imagination, he warned them. He said,  imagination has almost a mystical power, if you imagine, only then it can happen. If you don’t imagine,  it has no chance of happening. Go ahead, imagine. Make it happen, — he gave out the call for them.