WHAT IS THE UNITED NATIONS GLOBAL COMPACT?
It is a call to companies to align their strategies and operations with ten universal principles on human rights, labour standards, the environment, and the fight against corruption, and to take measures that promote the SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs). Today, with more than 9,500 companies and 3,000 organisations, with offices in more than 60 countries and more than 70 local networks, the Global Compact is spreading the message that any type of company anywhere on the planet – all sizes and sectors – can play a key role in improving our world.
WHAT ARE THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs)?
One of the greatest achievements recently in terms of sustainability has been the approval of the 2030 Agenda and the associated Sustainable Development Goals. Do you know what they are and how they came about? Humanity faces many challenges to ensure that all people have the same opportunities for development and well-being. In 2000, the United Nations adopted eight goals to meet the main needs of the poorest, the Millennium Development Goals:
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality and empower women
- Reduce infant mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Fight HIV, malaria and other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Promote a world association for development
From the Millennium Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals fifteen years later, 193 member states of the United Nations approved the 2030 Agenda, which sets out the Sustainable Development Goals, a new vision with the most important challenges for human beings in the coming years. They are seventeen ambitious goals, broken down into 169 aims, which require the collaboration of civil society and the public and private sectors, whose success would mean a more egalitarian and habitable world.
