On November 27th and 28th, 2012, Dean Xue Lan attended the first meeting of the Leadership Council of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, held at Columbia University, New York City, where he was appointed to co-chair the Leadership Council.
The SDSN is functioning under the support and sponsorship of Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who announced its launch on August 9, 2012. Consisting of scientists and technologists from academia, civil society and private sectors, the SDSN aims to promote problem solving in the local, national and global sustainable development. The SDSN will work closely with United Nations agencies, multilateral financing institutions, as well as other international organizations, to provide technical support to the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs, special consultant to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon & Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is appointed as the SDSN’s director.
A combination of over 70 world’s leading scientists, technologists, business leaders, statesmen and development practitioners attended the meeting and discussed on the new practical solutions for the pressing challenges of sustainable development.
During the meeting, Prof. Laurence Tubiana, a senior advisor to the former French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, and founder and director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations at SciencePo (France), and Prof. Xue Lan, Dean of School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University were appointed the co-chairmen of the SDSN’s Leadership Council.
In his closing speech for the meeting, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon emphasized the great significance of sustainable development on the UN global agenda and highly praised the participants’ contribution to developing the innovative solutions. He said: “ Innovative science-based solutions will provide the answer to many of the complex and interlinked challenges that the world faces today. The perspectives offered by the academic and scientific community are paramount to the post-2015 development agenda. The SDSN will provide clarity about what solutions science and technology can offer to today’s problems on a global scale.”.
In addition to the Leadership Council, The SDSN also founded several working panels to find solutions to global issues such as poverty eradication, gender equality, universal access to healthcare, the transition to low carbon energy, and more resilient cities. In the next few months, a series of conferences will be held in Nairobi, Paris, Berlin, Malaysia, and Beijing, to provide a discussion platform for country heads, business leaders, scientists, research fellows and academic experts. The Leadership Council of the SDSN expects to submit the Post-2015 Development Agenda to the Secretary-General next year.
For more information, please visit www.unsdsn.org.
