free space

4 «28 COP»

Faisal Mohammed Al-Shamry

January 17 2022

'We don't have an alternative planet'

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations from 2007 to 2016.

This thought drove the development of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), officially known as “Transforming Our World,” which are 17 goals set by the United Nations, and based on the principles agreed upon in the resolution, titled “The Future We Want.”

These goals were mentioned in a UN General Assembly resolution in September 2015, and in January 2016 they were included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (https://sdgs.un.org/).

These main goals are interconnected, and each has its own specific small goals, which are represented in total by 169 goals, as the sustainable development goals cover a wide range of social and economic development issues (poverty, hunger, health, education, climate change, gender equality, water, sanitation health, energy, environment, and social justice).

The Millennium Development Goals have achieved success in eradicating poverty in just two decades (1.9 billion people in 1990 to 836 million people in 2015). and the suffering of the poor.

Gender parity has been achieved in primary schools, and women have made gains in parliamentary representation over the past 20 years, in nearly 90% of the 174 countries for which data are available, but progress has been uneven, and significant gaps and opportunities for improvement remain.

We note that many of the goals are related to tolerance and a divine message, including: “eradication of poverty,” “total eradication of hunger,” “good health and well-being,” and “quality education.”

Until the fifth goal, “gender equality”, the state achieved global leadership and unprecedented representation, reaching positive discrimination. Some began to feel that it was more than reasonable, and aspired for men to obtain equal privileges or equality, so that the state would turn into a beacon of women’s rights and comprehensive empowerment. legislative, regulatory, institutional and functional.

The private sector began to achieve the same thing, and all that remained was to become the "work quota" without specifying a gender, in order to achieve near-absolute equality.

If we monitor the impact of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) awards and their structure as a model, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) awards competition was developed, in response to the requests of stakeholders in the World Summit on the Information Society, to create an effective mechanism for evaluating projects and activities that benefit from the power of information and communication technology, to promote development sustainable.

Since its inception, the competition has attracted more than 300,000 participants, at a time when this competition is a close practical alignment between the World Summit on the Information Society, as a unique global platform for identifying and presenting success stories in implementing the Summit's lines of action and the sustainable development goals.

It is also an exceptional international recognition of stakeholders as winners and champions, for their excellence in supporting the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society, especially the WSIS Action Plans that support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

This had the effect of spreading awareness, including the 17 main sustainable development goals, and the 169 small sub-goals and objectives, as the UAE became one of the success partners in this incentive system, and won many awards in it, (I remember that during my work as Executive Director of the Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence Program at the Ministry Previously, the Ministry, through the work teams it headed, won several awards in the category of Project Champions).

This would not have been possible without a keen vision and highly professional coordination by those concerned with the Communications Regulatory Authority and the Digital Government, in explaining the mechanisms of participation and the complex evaluation process.

The systematic linkage of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the development of a system for immediate monitoring and vigorous follow-up of any discrepancy in the progress of some goals, or any stumbling (which is expected and happened in first world countries, including the European Union), and the development of an international strategic governance system as part of a platform for knowledge exchange and partnership building. , is irreplaceable.

The traditional thought in managing this business may be a gateway to failure, and therefore, the thought based on building international partnerships with the private sector to establish commercial entities that protect the environment, and develop technologies and enablers of sustainability, is something that has become part of specialized investment strategies, as environmental, social and governance-based investment It has become at the highest levels of demand, business schools offer lessons in this field, funds traded in stock markets are recording record flows, and international banks and financial institutions contribute billions for sustainable financing, which we aspire to see a local movement similar to this responsible global financial trend. .

Management Consultant, Digital Transformation, Expert and Evaluator of Corporate Excellence

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