At the 2016 Social Good Summit, held in New York alongside the General Assembly, the GSMA announced a collaboration with the United Nations and Project Everyone, a non-profit global campaign, to increase awareness of and engagement with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Together, the organisations have developed and launched the ‘SDGs in Action’ mobile app, which provides a global forum through which industry, governments and individual citizens can collectively realise the promise of the SDGs.
“The agenda set forth by the Sustainable Development Goals is far-reaching and ambitious, from ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all, to achieving gender equality, to making cities and settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, to helping to combat climate change and its impacts,” said Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA. “Mobile networks have the power to accelerate this journey in a way that no other technology can. And through the partnership with the United Nations and Project Everyone, we are able to engage industry, governments and individuals in working together to achieve the SDGs.”
“The United Nations is pleased to be working with GSMA on a multi-year road map for cooperation and harnessing the critical role that the mobile industry can play in advancing the Goals,” said Under Secretary General David Nabarro, the Special Adviser on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “This includes a broad range of efforts in support of the SDGs – from inviting leading companies to join hands and support initiatives on women and children’s health, disaster relief, data collection and analysis, to aligning industry-wide sustainability business practices with the Goals.”
“It is critical to the success of the UN Global Goals that all citizens can have their voice heard and actively engage in playing a part towards the Goals being achieved by 2030,” said Richard Curtis, Founder of Project Everyone, filmmaker and Founder of Comic Relief. “Which is why it has been so exciting to play our own role in creating the first app to give everyone, everywhere, the opportunity to share with both their friends and world leaders, what they want and how they themselves are taking an action to make it happen. This is the year when everyone can start to play a part towards achieving the Global Goals – and the SDGs in Action app really is the place to do it.”
On the same occasion the GSMA unveiled the ‘2016 Mobile Industry Impact Report: Sustainable Development Goals’, a ground-breaking study that provides a current assessment of the mobile industry’s impact in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and outlines future actions that will expand and strengthen that impact.