UN Launches Renewed Global Action For Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday, 5 July 2023, kicked off a communications campaign to rally for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the roadmap for people and planet adopted by world leaders in 2015.

According to a statement issued by the Media Officer of the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC), Dr. Olueyi Soremekun, the public mobilization comes ahead of the critical halftime Summit in September at the UN in New York. The campaign aims to amplify an urgent call for ambitious new action, showcase the Goals as the blueprint for sustainable progress globally, and galvanize the global public around this shared agenda for our common future.

At halftime toward the deadline of 2030, the promise of the SDGs is in peril. For the first time in decades, development progress is reversing under the combined impacts of climate disasters, conflict, and economic downturn and lingering COVID-19 effects, the statement added.

The 2023 SDG Summit will gather world leaders at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 18- 19 September to reaffirm their collective commitments to the Goals and the promise to leave no one behind. This Summit is a defining moment to urgently put the world back on track to achieving the SDGs.

Starting today, in a major digital activation across platforms and countries worldwide, the UN campaign aims to re-energize the conversation about the Goals.

“We want to get everyone on board for the SDGs”, Nanette Braun, Director of Campaigns in the UN Department for Global Communications said.

Also reacting, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale said “Our hope is that decision-makers and individual citizens alike will feel inspired to join the conversation and contribute to achieving the Goals with new resolve and ambition.”

Building off the color wheel brand of the SDGs, the campaign uses a dynamic new visual system for its messaging to build momentum, raise awareness and mobilize accelerated action for the SDGs.

One core campaign component is the call to individual citizens to take action on the SDGs through the UN’s ActNow initiative across all 17 Goals.