Executive Update: Global goals taking shape in Gulf business ambitions

Posted by Lise Kingo, Executive Director, UN Global Compact on 27 October 2016

This week in Dubai, local business enthusiasm for the 2030 Agenda was well on display. We came here with our Making Global Goals Local Business campaign and were delighted by the response.

Together with the UAE Network we hosted a series of events encouraging companies to move from awareness to action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UAE is home to one of the fastest growing Global Compact networks worldwide. The Network credits much of its growth to the SDGs, which are increasingly resonating with business here. This is in part due to the Government’s belief that the SDGs have potential to create new markets for products, services, and infrastructure to secure a sustainable future in the UAE and beyond.  

Whether investing in renewable energy, designing and building smart cities of tomorrow, or creating a major logistics hub to improve global humanitarian response capabilities, many public initiatives here are sparking business opportunities which can help unlock progress across the 2030 Agenda.

In lively discussions over four days of meetings which attracted more than 600 change makers from business, government, civil society and the United Nations, a number of examples of local and regional business leadership were discussed:  

• A Dubai-based private equity firm models financial success by putting environmental, social and governance principles at the core of all its investment practices.

• An energy company operating in Saudi Arabia created an all-women business unit – helping overcome barriers to professional advancement in a sector where career prospects for women have traditionally been limited.

• Local firms in the UAE are bringing private sector knowledge and expertise to the production of relief supplies and services, which aim to strengthen public responses to complex emergencies.

• Numerous companies in the Gulf are also taking action to help educate refugee children and youth, investments which can help build a more peaceful world by reducing the risk of conflicts repeating themselves among future generations. 

Scaling these business models and leadership examples across the world can take us a long way on our journey to a better future.

The SDGs are a promising pathway, but shadows of conflict in the region and across the globe risk undermining our progress. At this week’s Business for Peace meetings, over 250 participants came together to identify ways to advance SDG 16, a building-block goal that aspires to strengthen peace, rule of law, anti-corruption and other fundamentals of healthy societies. In spite of the daunting humanitarian challenges we face worldwide, there was tremendous energy, excitement and commitment in the room to collaborate in new ways to achieve SDG 16, drawing on creative ideas, resources and leadership from all sectors to build peace and accelerate progress across the whole 2030 Agenda.

As we move forward from this first “local stop” on our journey to make global goals local business, we will draw much inspiration from the mixture of urgency, excitement and opportunity that was shared this week in Dubai. As we have seen, our global agenda has tremendous capacity to be translated into diverse local contexts. At the core of the 2030 agenda are fundamental priorities truly shared by all people and all sectors. New business models are emerging, and examples of leadership are ready for scale.  The moment, the movement is now.