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Yunus Centre Press Release (02 October, 2019)

Yunus Warns Former Presidents and Prime Ministers in a Side Event During UN Week in NY

On Sept 25, Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus addressed the exclusive side event to the UN General Assembly on the issue of “Geopolitics in the Age of Sustainable Development” at Harvard Club and organized by Kerry Kennedy, founder and CEO of Robert F. Kennedy: Ripples of Hope, a Human Rights  Foundation . Thirty former Presidents and Prime ministers and Heads of international organizations attended the event. Among them were: Amre Moussa, former Secretary General of Arab League, Ian Fischer, former Prime minister of Czech Republic, Ismail Serageldin, former Vice President of the World Bank, Susan Elliot, President and CEO of National Committee on American Foreign Policy, Ivo Josipovic, former President of Croatia, Zlatko Lagyumdzija. Former Prime minister of Bosnia, and Herzegovina, Yves Leterme, former Prime minister of Belgium, George Papandreou, former Prime minister of Greece, Rosen Plevneliev, former President of Bulgaria Danilo Turk, former President of Slovenia and Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi. 

Professor Yunus addressed the gathering and shared his three worries pertaining to the present day world. He elaborated why he believed that the path followed by the present world is a path to disaster. One of his three worries are: ever increasing speed of extreme concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Not only global wealth concentrating in fewer hands, it is concentrating in fewer countries, leaving the wide world barren of wealth. This destroys the geopolitical balance in the world as well as social balance in between countries and within countries. 

His second worry is climate change which is approaching fast but for which no real actions have been put in place to arrest the deterioration. The world has very little time left to act to save it from total destruction. “We are left with only two to three decades to save ourselves”, he said. Our next generation may not see normal life as understood in the past. It is becoming evident that the next generation doesn’t have a future at all. His third worry is the fast moving intrusion of artificial intelligence which will be replace human beings in every aspect of economic activity. He wondered if human beings would survive at all when AI takes over all their work. There are those that argue that when AI takes over, human beings will have nothing to worry as they will enjoy their lives with a universal basic income provided by the government. To them Yunus raised the question “If AI takes over everything, will there be any government left under the control of human beings?” In any case he did not wish to see a time when human beings would become beggars for physical survival.

During the UN Week, Yunus attended the UN Summit on SDGs where Heads of State and Government gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to follow up and comprehensively review progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda containing 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It was the first UN summit on the SDGs since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda in September 2015.

In his address to the SDG Advocates, the UN Secretary General mentioned, “The 2030 Agenda is coming to life”, referring to the blueprint for a healthier planet and a more just world, as he launched the first Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit in New York. However, despite encouraging progress, António Guterres warned that much more needs to be done, and “we must step up our efforts now”.

Professor Yunus had a three hour pre-arranged meeting with Marina Silva,  former Brazilian Minister for the Environment for President Lula’s government, an environmental activist and Goldman Prize winner, and her team. She also was a Presidential candidate in the last general election of Brazil. This meeting was requested by Marina Silva to discuss the threat to the global environment created by Amazon fire recently. She pointed out that fire in the Amazon forest is increasing without limit. There was an 83% increase in forest fires in the Amazon since last year. Yunus told her that two major events took place this year to bring the focus of the entire world to the environmental crisis irrespective of political orientation. First was the emergence of Greta Thunberg. She highlighted the issue of urgency of environmental action to the global public, particularly to the young people, even to those who did not  pay any attention to environmental crisis. The second was the Amazon fire. It was on every TV screen in every country for days, moving everyone emotionally, making people feel the gravity of the situation and willingness to do something about it. While Greta continued to build up support for protecting environment across the globe, the memory of Amazon fire died away without producing a movement to protect the environment. Marina and Yunus agreed to build a movement not only to protect Amazon but to let it flourish. Marina Team later met with Yunus Team to work out the outline of the steps to be taken in the coming months in Brazil, and throughout the world. Yunus proposed some social businesses to transform the Amazon region.

Yunus attended as an SGD Advocate appointed by the UN Secretary General, the special UN SDG Advocate reception attended by the Secretary General Mr. António Guterres and Amina Jane Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. Secretary General welcomed the new group of SDG Advocates and explained to them the importance of their role in taking these goals to both the youth and the general audience, to encourage them to design and implement their actions plans in order to achieve such goals effectively. New Advocates were introduced to the emeritus Advocates to pass on their experiences to the new Advocates.

International Olympic Committee (IOC)  President Thomas Bach invited Professor Yunus to an exclusive dinner for a few friends and advisors at a restaurant to thank them for their support and discuss upcoming events and programmes of IOC.  Besides Yunus, other guests were Laura Chinchilla, former President of Costa Rica, Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand, His Majesty King of the Netherlands, Prince Albert of Monaco, Luis Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank, Richard Carrión, Board of Verizon, former Director of FED New York, IOC Member Anita DeFrantz, US Olympian, and IOC member  Mamadou Diagna NDIAYE,  and President National Olympic Committee of Senegal.  

Professor  Yunus was invited by Christophe Itier, French High Commissioner for the Social and Solidarity Economy and Social Innovation for Impact, addressed  the meeting of global alliance for social and inclusive economy, which is an  European initiative to form an Alliance of countries to promote social and inclusive economy. Yunus elaborated to the representatives of various governments which have joined the Alliance the importance of creating and expanding social businesses to address the social problems in a sustainable way. He underlined that every citizen can play an important role in solving social problems. Governments instead of giving the  impression that they are solely responsible for solving social problems should facilitate each citizen to undertake his/her own initiatives. While governments are doing their best to solve the problems, they should play the role of cheer-leaders and facilitators for engaging their own citizens through creating innovative social businesses.

Caption for Photo 1: Professor Yunus at the special IOC dinner hosted by Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee. Guests included Laura Chinchilla, ex President of Costa Rica, Luis Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank, King Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand, King of the Netherlands, Prince Albert of Monaco, Richard Carrión, Board of Verizon, former Director of FED New York, Anita DeFrantz, US Olympian and, Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye, President NOC Senegal.

Caption for Photo 2: Professor Muhammad Yunus with Marina Silva, the renowned climate activist and former Brazilian Minister for Environment  

Caption for Photo 3: Professor Yunus with critically acclaimed Icelandic/Danish artist and climate activist Olafur Eliasson, the newest UNDP Goodwill Ambassador for climate action and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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