GEEF

Background and Rationale

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected engagement toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With 2030 closing up every year, it is crucial at this point for us to seek the future directions of SDGs in the post-COVID-19 era. 35 years ago in 1987, Our Common Future Report was published under Gro Harlem Brundtland’s leadership. The concept of Sustainable Development (SD) started from this report and it pursues meeting the needs of the present without compromising the resources and ability of future generations.

With Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland and diverse stakeholders, this discussion aims to touch on the main theme of the forum, “REMEMBER Our Common Future.” The discussion will remind every generation and stakeholders of how sustainable development started in the past and revive the importance of our common effort. It highlights the current state of SDGs and re-examines how all generations can work together for our common future by interacting with the growing generations.

Session Objectives

• To remember how the discussion on Sustainable Development Goals started from the “Our Common Future" Report.
• To share our thoughts on what has changed and remained the same from "Our Common Future" 35 years ago, and how recent few years have affected the global engagement towards SDGs.
• To examine the process of Sustainable Development Goals and remind ourselves of common goals aimed to achieve by 2030.
• To explore how SDGs are being discussed and handled, especially in the cultural business and in the sense of international cooperation.
• To discuss what should be done and expected from each generation and at different business, political, and individual levels.
• To hear the growing generation’s opinions on SDGs and encourage them to engage themselves in meeting our common goals.

Background and Rationale

Women's health is a critical global agenda that must be addressed for sustainable development while being directly connected to the goals set by the UNSDG (3. Good Health and Well-being 5. Gender Equality 8. Decent 10. Reduced Inequalities). In addition, it is an issue that should go beyond women’s sexual and reproduction related diseases. It should encompass a woman’s quality of life by considering their environments and their life cycles.

With the spread of COVID-19, personal health, safety, and economic conditions are issues that are becoming more polarized. The "COVID-19 National Health Survey" released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare last year, indicated that the mental health of women in their 20s and 30s, especially those from low-income families, has deteriorated the most. This survey indicates that women's health is no longer just a healthcare issue and that it should also be considered as a social issue.

Korea entered a lowest-low fertility society since 2002 and is projected to enter a super aged society by 2025. Although low birth rates and aging society are emerging as national issues and government budget is being invested, effective policies to overcome this problem are still insufficient. With the national fertility rate hitting an all-time low every year, marriage and childbirth being delayed, and the number of unmarried people increasing, the most important factor to consider is the situation faced by women.

This session aims to tackle the fundamental question of "Why are women reluctant or delaying marriage and childbirth?" FleishmanHillard aims to find the cause of the lowest-low fertility and how to overcome this national crisis by looking at the lives of women from the relevant party’s perspective, with the help of experts analyzing the causes of lowest-low fertility and considering the appropriate policies and measures that should be implemented moving forward.

Session Objectives

• Analysis of the Current Status and Causes of Low Fertility in Korea
• Identifying the Current Status of Women’s Physical and Mental Health and Proposing Suggestions to Promote Women's Health
• Discovering Appropriate Policy Support for the Promotion of Women's Health in Terms of Quality of Life

Background and Rationale

The global pandemic, the outbreak of COVID-19 caused many challenges amongst global citizens and governments, medical professionals, and pharmaceutical companies. Indeed, the most effective response to the global pandemic has been vaccination. Looking through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals, the world has made unprecedented efforts and progress to ensure global equitable vaccine access and successful vaccine implementation and uptake, through COVAX for example.

However, the last few years demonstrated that vaccine development alone could never be sufficient to withstand infectious diseases. While the development of the vaccine is in the domain of medicine and bio-tech, policy and social solidarity are the main enablers of equitable vaccine distribution and access. As the pandemic greatly disrupted supply and logistics including the cold chain, many governments were mounted with pressure to secure supplies for their population. Moreover, combatting vaccine misinformation and uncertainties arising from the pandemic has become an essential component of the COVID-19 response.

Together with diverse stakeholders, this session discusses various issues revolving around vaccine and vaccination. These include publicity and intellectual property rights of vaccine at its development stage, multilateral cooperation and partnership in vaccine logistics, and public communications and national vaccine policy. Furthermore, the discussion highlights what goes behind the scenes of the COVID-19 pandemic and promising practices for the next pandemic for our GEEF participants.

Session Objectives

• To share our views on how to strike the balance between intellectual property rights and publicity among pharmaceutical companies as well as present directions for the possible coexistence of corporate autonomy and technology development with the governments’ pursuit of public value
• To share experiences and lessons learned on barriers and global solidarity to the efficient vaccine distribution
• To discuss possible ways to improve global logistics and vaccine supply chain system on both global and national scales
• To explore what is the right direction of public communication and mitigation of misinformation on vaccination and share our views on what kind of leadership is required to go through 2022
• To answer questions from the audience and encourage them to overcome the pandemic together

Background and Rationale

On October 31st, 2017, Yonsei University and Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies signed the Memorandum of Understanding on the ‘Project for the Promotion of Future Social Innovation.’ As of March 1st, 2018, the Institute for Higher Education Innovation was officially launched as an organization directly responsible to the university president, thereby suggesting the highest level of commitment on campus for fostering future talent and developing a driving force for innovation in higher education.

'Workstation' is a term used as team-based unit for student-led extracurricular program run by Institute for Higher Education Innovation, where students who are willing to make meaningful changes in the society, develop their own projects and ideas to initiate future social innovation.

Session Objectives

• To share and inform students’ activities and achievements for SDGs
• To discuss how SDGs 13 and 14 can be achieved in the post COVID-19 era
• To allow panelists to communicate with the audience about the SDGs

Background and Rationale

Education is fundamental to developing the capacity of today’s youth to act as global citizens for a sustainable world. With mounting global challenges including climate change, enduring conflicts, gender inequality, and a global pandemic, promoting global citizenship is more vital than ever before.

Policymakers and educators are already taking action to integrate Global Citizenship Education (or GCED) into curricula around the world. GCED seeks to, “empower learners of all ages to assume active roles, both locally and globally, in building more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, and secure societies.” It aims to influence learning in three key areas – cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral with the goal of equipping learners with not only the knowledge but also the skills, values, and behaviors necessary to forge a sustainable future for all. ‘Transformative Education’ often combines GCED with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and the development of 21st Century Skills and can serve as an overarching term for this approach to education.

The Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens (BKMC) is a leader in promoting GCED and fostering youth-led action for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) based on global citizen values. The Centre is currently part of an initiative entitled ‘Mission 4.7’ along with UNESCO, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), Columbia University, the Global Schools Program, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (with the support of the Vatican). The initiative encourages and supports governments as well as educators in adopting GCED and Transformative Education in their policies and practices. Furthermore, the Centre implements its own grassroots-level programs that educate, empower, and build the capacity of youth and women to act as global citizens in their communities. As a part of their training, these young change-makers develop and run their own specialized SDG Micro-Projects in their communities, addressing challenges with solutions. To date, the BKMC has trained over 200 young leaders who have implemented 170 SDG Micro-Projects which in turn have reached over 730,000 people on the ground.

Following welcoming remarks by the 11th President of the Federal Republic of Austria and Co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon Centre, H.E. Heinz Fischer, the moderated and interactive session will constitute of two main segments:
1. The first segment will feature policymakers and education leaders who will share best practices for implementing GCED and Transformative Education at the policy level.
2. The second segment will consist of a panel discussion spotlighting young change-makers and alumni of the BKMC’s leadership training programs who have undertaken global citizen actions in their communities (SDG Micro-Projects).

The panel segment will include a short Q&A with the audience. Furthermore, the tool “Mentimeter” will be utilized during the session to facilitate audience engagement via real-time polling.
Overall, this 90-minute session aims to underline the importance of instilling global citizenship through GCED (enshrined in SDG 4, target 4.7) and inspire all of us to act for a sustainable tomorrow.

Session Objectives

• Discuss the importance of GCED and highlight why SDG 4, particularly 4.7, needs to be prioritized.
• Share best practices, experiences, challenges, and opportunities for GCED policy implementation and youth action for the SDGs.
• Discuss what is needed for global citizenship to thrive in different countries, communities, and contexts.
• Inspire others to act as global citizens for the SDGs.

Background and Rationale

Improvements in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system design have catalyzed its use in various application fields. Given their ubiquitous deployments to wide populations, ICT-based systems can be extended towards addressing various social challenges. Specifically, for the fastly aging global population, ICT systems can contribute in increasing the quality of life in various aspects. This session will bring together world leading researchers that focus on designing and deploying ICT systems for supporting the aging population. This panel session will discuss questions such as the direction of ICT system development for addressing the real-world needs of the elderly, introduce examples of such ICT systems and discuss what considerations need to be made to design practically useful ICT systems.

Session Objectives

• Discuss the direction of ICT system development for supporting the aging population
• Share opinions and considerations that need to be made for designing practically applicable systems
• Identify SDGs that can be addressed using ICT systems for the aging

Related SDGs

Background and Rationale

Firms have interacted with the society. Different ages have varying social expectations about the role of firms. Corporate social engagement has evolved into emergence of corporate ethics. Leading firms receive much attentions. As Korean firms increase global presence, it is necessary that firms should start to think the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in diverse formats and names, based on own vision and culture. Pursuit of SDGs, however, presents challenges in managing cross-border transactions. At the same time, the social expectations and the rationale are not completely clear.

While global threats such as climate changes and COVID-19 affect all countries, countries have own needs for corporate engagement in the social issues. Korean firms in the midst of globalization consider the SDGs, starting to discuss what Korean firms can do for the domestic and global societies. This session is hosted by School of Business (Brain Korea 21), providing an opportunity of thinking about the nexus between the firms and the society.

Session Objectives

Firms are an important actor in the SDG-related activities. This session presents the blue prints that participant firms show for our future, and discusses the role of the firms in the society in order to achieve the SDGs.

Background and Rationale

International organizations have been the main actors in global sustainable development activities. We are now facing more threats that urgently call for transnational cooperation and they are not only the natural or pandemic crises such as climate change or COVID-19, but also include economic polarization and poverty, social conflicts, or political/military tension. In these circumstances, the role of international organizations gains more importance in initiating and implementing sustainable development goals beyond the national boulders.

In shaping our common future, international organizations are an essential engine for aid and cooperation. However, the individual nations are replacing the role of international organizations under the pandemic disease. In addition to COVID-19, global societies are being digitally transformed. What would international organizations do in the future? This session is designed to have an in-depth discussion about the orientation and roles of international organizations for our common future.

Session Objectives

This session inquires the role of international organizations in the future, addressing the following questions:

• What should be the role of international organizations to reduce the digital gap in the world?
• How should international organizations cooperate with the state and civil society in the process of digitalization?
• How should international organizations re-align local partnerships with individual nations?
• From the perspective of international organizations, what should be the keywords for Korea’s development and cooperation?

Background and Rationale

In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its subset applications such as machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) have gained widespread attention, as well as some skepticism about its major promises in increasing productivity and efficacy in activities previously undertaken by humans. AI can be divided into two types: narrow and general. General AI describes a type of application that effectively replicates the processes of a human brain without any human intervention. This is the type of AI usually depicted in popular media, which has often led to suspicion by the general public. However, this type of AI is at present theoretical and there are no applications in use today. The type of AI that surrounds us is Narrow AI, which is trained to perform specific tasks under human supervision. Some AI capabilities include object recognition, decision making, problem solving, understanding language, learning from examples, and other combinations or variations of these.

Intergovernmental organizations, governments, industry and academia are all engaging in different AI applications for sustainable development. However, we must avoid fragmented efforts and recognize the need to empower one another. The Featured Session will offer a platform to discuss current activities and possible directions for mutually empowering partnerships among different stakeholders to deploy AI solutions that can accelerate the achievement of the SDGs.

For the purpose of sustainable development, AI can serve as a valuable tool to keep track of SDG achievement and help arrive at the best decisions that take into account multiple societal, environmental and economic considerations. Many movements have emerged from this opportunity, such as AI for social good and AI for sustainability, as well as more focused activities like machine learning applications for climate change.

Some misdirected applications of AI could result in higher income inequality, narrower work opportunities, and concerns for personal privacy. Yet, we must be reminded that technological advancement does not occur spontaneously but is steered by human intention and need. The international community has already established principles to direct AI solutions to ensure a better future for all. In 2018, the European Commission established the High-Level Expert Group on AI and published the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI. The following year, the OECD published the Recommendation of the Council on Artificial Intelligence agreed upon by all member countries and several partner countries.

Borrowing from the case of Korea, we can observe how different actors—government, industry and academia are engaging in AI to serve society. In 2017, the Korean government established the Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with the mandate to suggest policies pertaining to AI and other data technology. A leading example of industry’s work in AI is that of NAVER LABS, which recently created a 3D model of Seoul and mapped all of its roads, enabling the development of safer and more efficient transportation services, and thus bringing positive benefits to the city’s population. Yonsei University has also come into agreements with top technology companies such as NAVER and Kakao to implement educational services based on AI. The University has also gone beyond and integrated AI-based solutions to its very own Yongin Severance Hospital, part of the Yonsei University Health System.

The case of Korea portrays how multiple actors can engage and empower one another at the national level. On an international level, there are also many critical issues that call for the engagement and empowerment of different stakeholders in the AI and development spheres. A recent and vivid example is the COVID-19 pandemic and related issues, such as vaccine development and distribution. With global issues in mind, panelists are encouraged to discuss current and future approaches for international and interdisciplinary cooperation.

Session Objectives

• Introduce current efforts by early career academics, intergovernmental organizations, government and industry partners who work on utilizing latest science, technology and innovation to achieve the SDGs
• Share lessons learned from offering interdisciplinary research and education of SDGs at higher education institution (UIC, CMU examples)
• Examine actionable ways to overcome the short-term oriented trend in collaborations in AI for SD and move towards more sustained and deeper partnerships
• Discuss the role of intergovernmental organizations in establishing global regulations on the use of AI and how to encourage policy co-creation with other stakeholders
• Explore strategies to align private sector activities in AI with the achievement of the SDGs, balancing the creation of monetary revenue as well as positive returns to society and the environment
• Present successful cases of AI applications to address global issues. For example, use of AI to help develop COVID-19 vaccines and determine distribution