Huffington Post Blogger,Alex Ratcliffe, reviews World Goodwill's Seminar at the United Nations in Geneva.

Λίγες μέρες πριν τις εκλογές (στις ΗΠΑ), στις 28 Οκτωβρίου 2016, παρακολούθησα ένα σεμινάριο μέσα στο υγιές περιβάλλον του Palais des Nations (Η.Ε.), στη Γενεύη, «την πρωτεύουσα της ειρήνης και της ελευθερίας».Το θέμα του σεμιναρίου, το οποίο προσέλκυσε 150 άτομα από ένα ευρύ φάσμα, σε ό,τι αφορά το υπόβαθρο, τα επαγγέλματα και τις εθνικότητες, ήταν: «Παγκόσμια Καλή Θέληση, Ηθική Ευθύνη και οι Στόχοι για την Βιώσιμη Ανάπτυξη (ΣΒΑ) των Ηνωμένων Εθνών»

Ο βασικός τόνος του σεμιναρίου της Γενεύης, ήταν για την δυνατότητα που έχουμε να κάνουμε βιώσιμη την ανάπτυξη, αλλά αυτό προϋποθέτει παγκόσμια συνεργασία και παγκόσμια ανάληψη ευθύνης, καθώς και συνεργασία μεταξύ κυβερνήσεων και ιδιωτικού τομέα. Προϋποθέτει, ακόμα, η κοινωνία των πολιτών, εξίσου και οι πολίτες, να αναγνωρίσουν το επείγον και να καταστρώσουν σχέδια έχοντας κατά νου τις μελλοντικές γενιές. Υπογραμμίστηκε, ωστόσο, ότι για αυτήν την ενέργεια προϋπόθεση είναι η κοινωνική και πολιτική θέληση, πίσω από την οποία βρίσκεται, και πρέπει να βρίσκεται, η πρόθεση για το ευρύτερο καλό σε αντιδιαστολή με προσωπικές επιδιώξεις...

For three days, from October 17 – 20, over 30,000 people from around the planet gathered in the city of Quito, Ecuador, to envision future possibilities for the cities of the world. Ten thousand people including national politicians, urban planners and thinkers, and representatives of business and peoples’ movements came from outside of Ecuador. Around 400 city mayors attended the ‘Cities Olympics’.

World Goodwill has supported the work of the United Nations since the inception of the UN. On Friday, October 28, 2016 World Goodwill will, for the first time, host a meeting at UN Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The theme is From Intellect to Intuition : The Ethical Responsibility of the Sustainable Development Goals. The following day, Saturday, October 29, the focus on the theme From Intellect to Intuition will continue in Geneva with a seminar at another location in the city. There will also be seminars on this theme in London and New York on October 29. 

Two important global Summits were held at UN Headquarters in New York last month:

• The UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants
• The Leaders’ Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis.

So what did the Summits achieve? Inevitably, those who were hoping for some radical breakthrough that would reform a broken refugee system in the midst of crisis were disappointed. 

But there were significant achievements. The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants unanimously agreed at the UN Summit provides a set of principles around which countries can cooperate in developing a more coordinated and comprehensive response to the needs of refugees.

Pledges at the Leaders’ Summit, if fully implemented, would almost double resettlement places for refugees, increase humanitarian aid for refugees by $4.5bn, provide education to 1 million more refugee children and improve access to legal work for a further million adults. The Guardian commented that while there was disappointment after the Monday Summit, the mood changed on Tuesday, with 18 developed countries announcing plans to increase legal access for refugees, 17 developing countries pledging to increase refugees’ access to education, and 15 claiming that they would take various measures that could help to expand refugees’ access to work.

Speaking at the High Level Forum on the Culture of Peace at the UN on September 1, 2016, David Nabarro referred to efforts to implement the SDGs as a movement for what it means to be a human being. Nabarro is the UN Secretary General's Special Advisor on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Achievement of the Goals depends, he said, on our ability to resolve differences in a way that is peaceful. Without the Declaration and Programme of Action on the Culture of Peace we will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and we will not have a fit world for the generations to come.