Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
66
While at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York for the high level week, including the 79th General Assembly of the UN, the Sunday Observer had an opportunity to meet Maher Nasser, Director of Outreach Division, Department of Global Communications for the UN to discuss a broad range of themes, from the historical pact for the future that Nation States adopted and as to how the UN works with influencers to advocate Sustainable Development Goals.
Excerpts of the interview:
Q: During the high level week at UN headquarters, there was a meeting on sea level rise. How important do you think these discussions are for an island nation such as Sri Lanka?
A: According to the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres and many experts, climate change is an existential crisis for humanity, for other species and for the environment. The reason is that it does not just affect one part of economies or life, but has many manifestations. With climate change, we are seeing that extreme weather conditions are increasing in severity and frequency, whether you talk about typhoons, hurricanes, huge rains or extended drought, he said.
Sea level rise is another side of climate change, because with climate change, the planet is warming – for instance we have seen that during the past few years, each consecutive year has been the hottest year on record. Extreme heat and higher temperatures across the earth will cause more and more ice to melt, giving rise to sea level rise, which will impact mainly countries that are either islands or have a large coastal line.
If you look at any map of the world, most people actually live in coastal cities and in coastal communities. Thus, sea level rise is impacting not only rich cities such as New York and Miami, it is also impacting countries such as Sri Lanka. There are certain countries, small island states that could actually disappear from the map. The Maldives is one such and has been warned of the impending consequences. Given this situation, there needs to be more investment in mitigation, in building support structures to ensure that the most vulnerable are not paying the price for a problem that they had nothing to do in creating.
Q: What’s the role of the historic pact for the future that was adopted in September?
A: I think there are many areas in the pact for the future that can be built on to address the challenges that we are facing today, from doubling down on financing for development, sustainable development goals, to investing more in young people for the benefit of future generations. It also looks at how we could really ensure that the gap in science, technology and AI is bridged and they are not only for the benefit of a few but for the benefit of all. For instance, financing for development is critical.
Then there is also the other factor, which is the need to address the governance structure and to bring it to a level that makes this organisation more effective in the current context. In 1945, when the UN was set up there were 51 member states. The world population was 2.3 billion at the time, there was nobody in space, there was no Internet and there was no genetic engineering. The victors turned out as permanent members of the Security Council. The size of the world’s economy was much smaller. This means that financial organisations that were created to address the needs for development were also for the world of that time.
Today’s world encompasses eight billion people,and 193 member states. The world economy is 100 trillion dollars. Our daily life is spent on digital platforms. Climate change is wreaking havoc. There is tons of space debris and there are some challenges in the peaceful use of outer space. All of that needed to be revisited and then the pact of the future commences. The process actually did not end with the adoption of the pact but starts with the adoption of the pact.
I think maybe some countries and maybe even the Secretary General would like to see the pact for the future to be more ambitious but we know that this is an intergovernmental process.
Q: How is the UN engaging Civil Society in bridging technological gaps globally?
A: The UN Secretary General appointed a tech envoy several years ago – there’s an office now. Also, part of the pact for the future is the global digital compact. Then there is a scientific advisory board for the Secretary General and an Artificial Intelligence (AI) advisory board. So the UN is also tapping into expertise in this sector because we are not experts on this subject. We believe in the value of opinions and advice of those who are experts in the area, instead of just an opinion; we want expert opinion in this regard.
We also went one step further. We consulted with multiple entities in Civil Society. We identified two co-chairs from Civil Society who led a conference in Nairobi. The facilitators came from New York to Nairobi and they spent two whole days, engaging, and interacting with Civil Society. There is a strong iterative process and Civil Society felt engaged in it and they opted to come up with something new, something innovative during this process.
Coming back to the pact for the future; there are so many areas in the pact as to how we could ensure that all stakeholders could be brought onboard to give it more ambition and perhaps to create a group that will help bring it to action when it comes to implementation.
I think there’s a lot that Civil Society can really build on to ensure the legacy of Nairobi and that we deliver when it comes to the pact for the future.
Q: How does the UN engage celebrities and artistrs in advocating SDGS?
A: I think historically, the first UN agency that really worked with celebrities was the UNICEF. They, I think, appointed Audrey Hepburn and other celebrities as goodwill ambassadors those days. Goodwill ambassadors by nature are people who the media is interested in because they are artistes or in cinema and people pay attention to them. They can spotlight issues.
Now we have moved to the level where most if not all, UN agencies have goodwill ambassadors. We identify people who not only have a wide following and a platform but also who are really and truly committed to the issue that they want to work on because there has to be some level of authenticity. Of course, once we engage with them, they have the designation as a goodwill ambassador but it does not mean that they always speak for the UN.
Now, social media is a way for people to disseminate information and share information directly with a wide audience. We have our own social media segment being the UN but some of the celebrities we work with have a much wider reach – not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of audience. That is actually always part of the campaign – when we look at some campaigns we have reached around 400 million people by working with these celebrities.
They are not necessarily always the global ones, for example, if it is Sri Lanka, somebody local might be more relevant than a celebrity from Hollywood, Bollywood or Nollywood. Through our contacts with country teams, we also try to identify the most ideal messengers who could reach an audience we have in mind. When you talk about communications, messaging needs to be relevant to the audience and has to be disseminated through channels the audience use. This is what we have to adjust and relate to.
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.