Panel 4: The Way Forward

H.E. DR. THOMAS GASS, the Assistant-Secretary General, Inter-Agency Affairs of UN DESA, started his remarks by asking the audience “Can you imagine, one day after adopting these agenda and everyone is talking about how to implement it, and everyone is really looking at himself or herself seriously to see what can be done?” From my perspective, what are the next steps? We had a real paradigm shift, and everybody uses this word, but this time I think it is used appropriately. We moved from a conception of development, which was a very North-South kind of concept. 

DR. LISA GODDARD, Director of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Earth Institute of Columbia, started her remarks by saying there is one development goal on the importance of navigating the climate change and its impacts. But those impacts are not just climate change, we had impacts from climate throughout civilization, and it’s all of these other challenges that were facing in development and humanity; growing populations, added stress on our resources, all of these things are now making climate itself a bigger challenge. And climate information can really help inform the way forward on many of these development goals.

Steve Killelea is an accomplished entrepreneur in high technology business development and at the forefront of philanthropic activities focused on sustainable development and peace. Steve founded Integrated Research Ltd (IR). In 2007 Steve founded the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), an international think tank dedicated to building a greater understanding of the interconnection between business, peace and economics with particular emphasis on the economic benefits of peace. Steve currently serves on a number of influential Company Boards, Advisory Boards and President Councils. In 2010 he was honored as Member of the Order of Australia for his service to the global peace movement and the provision of humanitarian aid to the developing world. In 2013 Steve was nominated one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in Armed Violence Reduction” by the UK group Action on Armed Violence.

Laurence is the founder and CEO of Pavegen – an innovative clean-tech company that has pioneered a flooring technology, generating electricity from the kinetic energy of footfall. Having graduated with a 1st class honours in Industrial Design and Technology from Loughborough University, Laurence then went on to found the award-winning company, Pavegen Systems, in 2009. Consequently, Laurence is a thought leader and speaker at various technology and entrepreneurship events worldwide; his TEDxBerlin talk was featured among TED’s top talks on envisioning the cities of the future and changing attitudes to fossil fuels.

H.E Sheya Naima Koroma, the First Lady of Sierra Leone, addressed the issues of education and women’s empowerment in her country. H.E. Mrs. Koroma highlighted the importance of equal education to young girls and women in establishing gender equality, eliminating gender-based abuse, and empowering women. She stressed the need for education and good health services for women in order for them to make good choices in their lives and, therefore, empower the whole society. H.E. Mrs. Koroma tackled the issue of traditional norms and its detrimental role in preventing women in Sierra Leone’s societies from achieving their full potential.

H.E LAKASHMI PURI, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, emphasized in her speech UN Women’s full support of the agreement made by member States on “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.” H.E. Puri said that UN Women has been constantly engaged in the process of ensuring a stand-alone goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment. According to H.E. Puri, succeeding in delivering all 17 SDGs to women and girls will allow them to “live their lives free of discrimination and violence, and with equal rights and access to economic and other resources.”