On September 19, the ECOSOC Chamber inside the United Nations hosted the Investment and Partnerships for the Global Goals Summit organized by the Foundation for the Support of the United Nations. A large number of UN ambassadors, businessmen and women, and social leaders attended the event that emphasized the importance of public private partnership to accelerate the progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The event was also marked with the presence of high profile guests such as Steve Forbes and the former president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon.
During the event, the president and the Executive Chairman of FSUN, Janet Salazar, expressed her gratitude to all the partners and the guests who accepted the invitation not only to participate in the event, but also to promote and support the value of partnership and SDG convergence. The FSUN Team believes in the value of partnership and its cruciality to achieve and maintain any progress. They formed an exemplary public-private partnership dedicated to the achievement of SDGs by 2030.
In order for the Investment and Partnerships for the Global Goals Summit to happen, FSUN partnered with 7 UN permanent missions: The mission of Bulgaria that secured the ECOSOC chamber to host the event, the mission of Czech, France, Norway, Malaysia, Fiji, and Japan. The Executive director of the United Nations office for Partnerships, Robert Skinner, declared that he was impressed by the number of permanent representatives who were able to attend the event despite their busy schedules during the General Assembly week. FSUN also partnered with IBM and Nasdaq.
The summit was marked by the powerful speeches who motivated the audience to continue working towards the SDGs. All the speakers emphasized the importance of collaborating to spread awareness about the SDGs and use all resources available to support the process of achieving the global goals. They also stressed the importance of building trust and strong partnerships between the private and the public sector. Ambassadeur Marie Chatardova, the permanent representative of Czech indicated that “trust is key” to establish strong partnerships between government and business and business and stakeholders. Ambassador Georgi Panayotov, the permanent representative of Bulgaria, drew the audience attention to an important point “partnership with private sector is not at the desired level.” Ambassador Panayotov also stressed on the importance of educating the public about the SDGs in order to make effective progress to implement the goals.
The speakers also highlighted the importance of technology to achieve the global goals. For example, in his speech, Mr. Steve Forbes underlined that progress is happening and that technology is a large part of this progress. He said that technology is making our lives easier than before and can be used to support the achievement of the SDGs. Mr. Forbes admitted that the SDGs are ambitious, but he insisted that they are realizable if the human mind is freed and educated.
The Investment and Partnerships for the Global Goals summit is a successful event because it gathered public and private sector, men and women, youth and adults and guided them towards the path of partnership. It reitartes the notion of SDGs convergence and reminds everyone that the world needs to “come together, go together, and keep going” as Constance Peak, the Founding Chair of FSUN, said in her speech.
