With the power to end poverty, build financial and career resilience, and prepare for the jobs of the future, the 17 United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development (also known as SDGs) aim to make a better world by 2030. Guided by these goals, governments, businesses, NGOs, and the general public are working together to build a better future for today’s youth. Local and global nonprofits, community organizations, and schools have a unique opportunity to align their collective work to the Global Goals. What follows is an example of how JA Worldwide is aligning our programs and partnerships to eight of the seventeen Global Goals. (Download JA's Alignment to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, a booklet version of this web content.)
Eradicating poverty is not an act of charity, but the key to unlocking enormous human potential. Today, nearly half of the world's population lives in poverty, and together, we can ensure that everyone has a chance to prosper.
By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters.
Cindy Jazmin Amaya Gomez, CEO of Chocolovers, started her chocolate-bar company as JA student in a high- crime, high-poverty area of El Salvador. Working side-by-side with her grandmother, Cindy’s venture been successful enough to pay for Cindy’s college education, and continues to provide her family with steady income.
Every day, through our work at JA, we see that success is contagious, even in regions with chronic poverty. Although Cindy’s small business won’t singlehandedly solve the complex problem of poverty, her success does have an impact on family members, friends, customers, and others in her community, potentially helping them rethink what’s possible in their lives.
Education builds skills, unlocks the imagination, and opens a world of opportunities, making it possible for each of us to contribute to a progressive, healthy society. As the key to prosperity, learning benefits every human being and should be available to all.
By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship.
Bonnie Chiu, a JA Hong Kong alumna recently named to the Forbes Europe "30 under 30" list of social entrepreneurs, founded Lensational to equip marginalized women with the skills they need for financial success. Women and girls in 15 countries, armed with only a camera, training, and a platform to sell their work, are using Lensational to grow their family incomes and put money back into their communities.
By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations.
When he was 12 years old, JA alumnus Jerome Cowans experienced how vulnerable the children in his Kingston, Jamaica, community were when his good friend was killed violently. The next year, Jerome co-founded Leaders Endeavouring for Adolescent Development (LEAD), devoting himself to helping the next generation of young people have better access to education, reduce their economic and educational vulnerabilities, and take advantage of personal-development opportunities.
By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.
Locker Room Talk, a JA student NGO formed in 2016 to speak frankly about gender equality and macho culture in locker rooms, recently received a one million kroner award from soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Each year, over 10 million young people are encouraged through JA to consider how the companies they form will be not only financially successful but also socially impactful. For example, JA students have started nonprofits that welcome and assist refugees, take the confusion out of public transportation, and reduce environmental impact.
Gender bias undermines our social fabric and wastes human potential. By denying women equal rights, we deny half the population a chance to live life at its fullest. Political, economic, and social equality for women benefits all the world's citizens.
Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.
Whether leading a major U.S. university or serving as Secretary of Health & Human Services, JA alumnus Donna Shalala credits JA with preparing her to spend a career at the intersection of U.S. political, economic, and public life.
JA’s programs reach millions of young women each year, teaching them the work-readiness, financial- literacy, and entrepreneurship skills they’ll need to achieve full economic and social equality as adults. Partnering with Citi Foundation, JA has trained more than 20,000 women through our Women for Development initiative. With some of the leading technology, engineering, and medical firms in the world, JA has partnered to deliver Girls in STEM initiatives. And we’re proud to say that, year in and year out, girls make up half—or more—of the finalists at our JA Company of the Year competitions.
Economic growth can be a positive force for the entire planet by ensuring that financial progress creates decent and fulfilling jobs while not harming the environment. When we promote job creation with expanded access to banking and financial services, we ensure that everyone benefits from entrepreneurship and innovation.
Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services.
JA was a signatory to the UN General Assembly’s resolution recognizing the role that micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) play in achieving The Global Goals and has been recognized by the UN for contributing to Global Goal 8.
For 100 years, through the JA Company Program and host of other entrepreneurship programs, JA students have launched micro-startups that grow into sustainable small businesses or blossom into medium-sized, community-sustaining enterprises
By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.
Many JA students find their purpose in developing products that enable persons with disabilities to dress, travel, and communicate with greater ease. Ireland’s Guide-A-Key student company developed a device that enables arthritic users to insert a key into lock with ease.
Other JA student companies have designed a folding suitcase wheelchair ramp, created an app that bridges the gap between the hearing impaired and the rest of society, patented Braille clothing tags that enable wardrobe color matching, and produced an e-walking stick.
By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training.
For years, Jonathon de Jesus Muñoz of Jalpan, México, emigrated to the United States to earn better wages than he could at home. But, eventually, armed with a desire to earn a living while remaining in Mexico, Jonathon launched Blokera Muñoz, a brick and concrete manufacturer. Today, he employs a crew of local workers.
JA believes we can end global youth unemployment in one generation by training and inspiring just ten percent of today's youth to each create five jobs . . . as Jonathon has.
By 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products.
Nearly 30 years ago, JA Canada alumnus and bestselling author Bruce Poon Tip launched G Adventures to bridge the gap between high-energy solo backpacking on the one hand, and mostly sedentary group tours on the other. In the process, Bruce pioneered the adventure-travel, sustainable-travel, and travel-for-social-good markets.
Each year, the JA travel and tourism program—called TTBiz—helps thousands of students navigate diverse cultures, launch tourism-related businesses and, like Bruce, discover the next big travel trend.
With so much of the world’s wealth held by so few, we must work to make equality and prosperity available to everyone, in every nation, regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs, or economic status. When every individual is self-sufficient, the entire world prospers.
By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.
Joseph Ndinya, financial manager of Kenya-based White Charcoal, salvages paper from Nairobi trash dumps and compresses it into briquettes, an alternative to wood-based home-heating fuel. Using earnings from his company, Joseph was able to buy his mother a house, an impossibility just a few years earlier.
Joseph credits JA with his business acumen: “If not for the JA training and White Charcoal business, I would be jobless, and I don’t know if I would be alive.”
The world’s population is constantly increasing. To accommodate everyone, we need to build modern, sustainable cities and intelligent urban planning that creates safe, affordable, and resilient cities with green and culturally inspiring living conditions.
By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management.
At JA Hong Kong, the School Challenge project—a four-months-long STEM-focused social-innovation project—is helping transform Kowloon East into a pioneer smart city. In other parts of the world, JA partners with corporations to host one- and two-day innovation challenges that tackle a local challenge.
Climate change is a real and undeniable threat to our entire civilization. The effects are already visible and will be catastrophic unless we act now. Through education, innovation, and adherence to our climate commitments, we can make the necessary changes to protect the planet. These changes also provide huge opportunities to modernize our infrastructure, which will create new jobs and promote greater prosperity across the globe.
Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning.
In Egypt, three JA students launched Dawayer Design Studio, a company that recycles straw waste and designs it into beautiful furniture. Other JA entrepreneurs are recycling precious minerals from discarded electronic devices, designing electrical outlets that shut off when not in use in order to conserve energy, and designing products out of locally sourced material to reduce the environmental impact of shipping raw materials. The JA generation is working to reverse the effects of climate change.
The Global Goals will be met only if we work together. Global investments and support are needed to ensure innovative technological development, fair and free trade, and market access, especially for developing countries. To build a better world, we need to be supportive, empathetic, inventive, passionate, and above all, cooperative.
Encourage and promote effective public, public-private, and civil-society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships.
Every day, JA collaborates with corporations, foundations, and other NGOs to advance The Global Goals for Sustainable Development. From a four-organization alliance that sparks girls’ interest in STEM to a joint campaign with the European Union to support and improve entrepreneurship education, JA recognizes that effective partnerships allow us to focus on what we do best, while supporting like-minded organizations in their areas of expertise.
Lord Michael Hastings discusses the link between The Global Goals and the plight of refugees, especially the need to bring diligence and dignity to the poorest of the world.