Yonsei University, under the leadership of President Dong-Sup Yoon, is gearing up to host the 6th Global Engagement and Empowerment Forum on Sustainable Development (GEEF 2024) scheduled for March 14th to 15th, 2024. This forum serves as a prominent international platform where leading figures and scholars gather to promote collaboration among nations in addressing pressing global issues, including the climate crisis, conflicts, public health, human rights, and education. Over the past five years, this crucial conference on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has attracted the participation of more than 10,000 attendees from approximately 124 countries worldwide.
This year, the 6th Global Engagement and Empowerment Forum on Sustainable Development (GEEF 2024) will revolve around the theme 'Reboot the SDGs: Reset Our Future'. Notable figures such as Ban Ki-moon, the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations, Heinz Fischer, the 11th Federal President of Austria, and Amina J. Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, will be joined by 91 speakers from 18 countries. The event anticipates over 2,000 attendees from 36 countries. Keynote speakers include Juan Manuel Santos, the 32nd President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate in 2016, Dennis Francis, President of the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, and Tae-yul Cho, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of Korea. The primary objective of the forum is to evaluate progress towards the '2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development' set by the UN in 2015, employing data-driven decision-making to identify practical actions for achieving global goals by 2030 and proposing future directions for development. The forum will delve into crucial topics such as artificial intelligence, the care economy, climate change, human rights, and development cooperation, fostering extensive global communication and collaboration.
Key sessions include "Global Peace Building," chaired by Ban Ki-moon; "SDGs Stocktaking - The Global Landscape, Local Applications, and Future Directions," led by Kang Kyung-hwa, Distinguished Professor at the Institute for Global Engagement and Empowerment, Yonsei University and the 38th Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea; and "Mental Health and Population Crisis in Korean Society" by Jim Yong Kim, 12th President of the World Bank, and Peter Jongho Na, Professor at Yale University. Additionally, sustainable societal construction through care and domestic labor, policy solutions for the climate crisis, the positive impacts and social side effects of AI, and evidence-based policy decisions, as well as presentations on sustainable development research by scholars, are among the 21 sessions planned. These discussions aim to critically review our past approach to SDGs and forge substantial policies for the future. This forum is expected to be an international platform where various parts of the world including Asia, Africa, and South American regions could share discourses on sustainability.
Ban Ki-moon emphasized the forum's significance, stating, "GEEF will provide the opportunity for an inclusive and sustainable future by rebooting the SDGs. Every small action will lead to big changes". Dong-Sup Yoon, President of Yonsei University, expressed his hopes for the forum to serve as a platform of global cooperation towards the new journey of achieving the SDGs. "It is the time to unite and take decisive actions", he said.
Ranked 14th globally and top among Asian private universities in last year's THE (Times Higher Education) Impact Rankings, Yonsei University has been actively leveraging its intellectual and human capital to address societal challenges. In 2017, under the honorary chairmanship of Ban Ki-moon, the university established the Institute for Global Engagement and Empowerment. Since then, it has annually organized the Global Engagement and Empowerment Forum on Sustainable Development (GEEF), demonstrating its leadership in advancing sustainable development goals.
