Most people feel that the future is linear: if you perform well in school, you’ll get a job; if you work hard, you’ll be promoted; if you save, you’ll be able to live well through your retirement age, et cetera, et cetera. There is a great level of comfort in the IF → THEN causal link because there are fewer variables, fewer elements that could go off the rails. There is more certainty and we feel more in control.
In my 25 years at the United Nations I have had the fortune to sample a number of the silos for which our institution has become famous. The development. And the humanitarian. I’ve also worked at the intersections - on peacebuilding, on recovery from the tsunami, on the MDGs.
More than 150 world leaders gathered at UN Headquarters in New York last week to formally adopt 17 global goals, and an ambitious sustainable development agenda. As an important step, many like those at Project Everyone, are already at working to help people know and understand the global goals. Everybody should get excited about the historic opportunity the goals provide to make the world a better place by 2030, especially for those currently left behind. Seeing the goals projected onto the UN building last week was a truly amazing experience!
When crisis strikes, data – normally provided by national counterparts – suddenly can be in short supply, or outright unavailable. Each organization scrambles to find, or produce, the basic data they need to function in the crisis, with little time to consider common data needs, common collection systems or data sharing. The result is often translated into disconnected or overlapping responses, or simply the lack of appropriate responses.
During the Syria crisis years, the context in Jordan has changed significantly. The situation has evolved from an initial focus on life-saving humanitarian assistance to a time when assistance to refugees and host communities must be equally prioritized.
What is big data and how can it benefit human development? A recent Big Data Bootcamp opened the floodgates on a deluge of data and asked the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to think about how to use it in meaningful ways.
The new sustainable development agenda is transformative, rights-based and universal. Without a doubt, supporting countries to implement the new agenda requires a United Nations system that is “fit for purpose” and I see six steps we can take before 1 January 2016. We have a tremendous opportunity to re-position the UN system to maximize its unique comparative advantages in support of sustainable development.
An ecosystem is a community of living organisms interacting as a system. The ecosystem is more than the sum of its parts: each member of the community depends on acting and working together. Becoming an ecosystem will require bringing together all the United Nations’ capacities, even the ‘soft’ ones – like our convening power . This will guarantee the system’s ability to act holistically and to link the national and global levels.
