Reflections from our CEO at the UN Sustainable Development Goals action weekend

From 18-19th September, global figures, organisations and representatives were invited to the United Nations headquarters for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) weekend in New York. The weekend was designed for stakeholders and member states to convene and set out specific commitments and contributions to help reach the goals by 2030. Here, our CEO, who attended the action weekend, shares his reflections.
One of my personal passions and one of the focus points for African Muslims agency (AMA) is sustainability. While most people talk about sustainability, many don’t have any clear understanding of what it really means and how to translate it into action within an organisation that translates into people benefiting directly.
As the CEO of Africa Muslim Agency, I think attending the action weekend is important because when you look at the 17 SDGs, there’s a number of those goals that speak directly to what AMA does on a daily basis.
No poverty, zero hunger, quality education, clean water and sanitation – these are just four of the 17 goals that speak directly to what AMA does amongst the others. So sustainability to me means when you have a crisis situation, when you have refugees displaced, when you have earthquakes, floods, all of these climate related issues, that result in the displacement or the suffering of thousands, there’s two types of aid interventions they require.
Number one is disaster relief, which means immediate relief. They need to be able to alleviate the immediate disaster that they find themselves in. But once that bottleneck is released, then we have to look at how we equip them, how do we educate them, how do we educate the next generation? How do we actually build into the environment, clean water and sanitation? How can we teach them farming techniques, for example, so that we can move towards no poverty and zero hunger in those communities.
That to me, is sustainability long term, because you cannot just feed a nation forever and ever and ever. Because then you create a dependent society and not an independent society, and to do that, education is key. Clean water and sanitation is key. Agriculture is key. And these speak to some of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Overall, this is why I believe our presence here is key. It doesn’t take one organisation around the world to do something, it takes many, many, many hundreds of thousands, millions of people around the world in their own small way, doing something to make a massive difference.
Hope in humanity
Attending the UN action weekend, alongside people from all different nationalities, age groups and backgrounds, seriously discussing the future and their commitments leaves you with an incredible sense of hope in humanity.
The event reaffirmed that we are all more alike than we are different.
The action weekend also highlighted that both the younger and older generation want the same thing and that the present belongs to both generations. The true value is in working together collaboratively and utilising each others’ strengths.
The younger generation needs the older generation’s experience, wisdom, and skill and the older generation needs the younger generation’s excitement, energy, understanding of technology and artificial intelligence, etc.
When you have that multi-generational collaboration, you can harness it to benefit the Sustainable Development Goals. When this is achieved, it’s incredible what can happen, and that applies to all sectors of society.
What struck me is the emphasis that you don’t have to be in the UN headquarters to contribute to the SDGs, the important thing is that you act locally in your community, within your family, in your neighbourhood, and the impact will be felt globally.
The fact that so many countries could come together, and for three years debate and deliberate on the SDGs before finally reaching a consensus gives us massive hope as humanity for the future.