Social Media & Technology, Powerful Forces for Change

To raise awareness around the highly anticipated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) China today hosted the 2015 Social Good Summit, making China the first country to launch the Global Goals Campaign and promote the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), alongside partners the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chinese Social Media for Social Good Alliance.

“The Social Good Summit is a flagship event for UNDP,” said UNDP Administrator Helen Clark. “We plan to use the Social Good Summit’s platform and audience to help governments and partners launch the Sustainable Development Goals to help make the new Global Goals a household name everywhere.”

With the theme, “New Goals. New Power. New Technology,” the Social Good Summit in China brought together big technology giants, Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and YouKu, alongside private sector companies such as Standard Chartered and the Chinese Civil Society Organization to join forces in a bid to make the global goals famous. The partners also took the opportunity to share best practices in harnessing the power of social media to promote social good, such as Baidu’s new app for e-waste recycling and Tencent’s efforts in bridging the digital divide between rural and urban China.

“We are honored to be one of the initiators of the Chinese Social Media for Social Good Alliance and together with the Alliance became the earliest partners for Social Good Summit in China. Since the establishment in 2011, members of the Alliance have put aside competition and worked closely together to promote social good in China. Today, we are excited to see how our members have broken new ground and united together for the global good,” said Jianyue Yang, Deputy Director of China Country Office at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Social Good Summit in China is part of more than 100 Social Good Summits organized around

the world to raise awareness of the SDGs in September. Adopted by all 193 UN Member States, the Sustainable Development Goals are 17 ambitious goals to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice and tackle climate change for everyone by 2030.

“The comprehensive list of SDGs are our chance to leave this world as a better place than we found it” said Agi Veres, UNDP Country Director in her opening remarks, “and it is our responsibility to work together, making a concerted effort to achieve these global goals starting today.”

To mark the adoption of the SDGs, the Global Goals campaign strives to tell 7 billion people in 7 days. UNDP China with its partners launched the China Global Goals Alliance to help realize this vision. The partners of the Global Goals Alliance signed a pledge to take leadership in promoting the Global Goals Campaign by raising awareness for the goals with their employees, clients, partners and other stakeholders and calling for the broader business community to take concrete action and tell everybody about the new SDGs. The partners cemented this commitment by raising 17 flags to represent each of the new goals together in the UN Compound in China.

About Social Good Summit

Each September, world leaders come together at the United Nations General Assembly to discuss global issues and ways in which to tackle them. Recognizing that the voices and ideas of concerned global citizens connected by social media and technology can be powerful forces for change, UNDP Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation first partnered in 2009 to host the Social Good Summit in New York to expand the UN conversations to include innovators, activists and entrepreneurs around the world. Now in its sixth year, the Social Good Summit continues to grow in impact and reach to unite global citizens to unlock the potential of technology to make the world a better place.