Highlights of the Global Sustainable Development Congress 2022
Written by Mr Aashraya SETH (India)
The 4th ASEF Young Leaders Summit (ASEFYLS4) took place in 2021, under the theme ‘Sustainable Development in a Post-COVID-19 World’. It was held alongside the 13th ASEM Summit (ASEM13). Participants experienced a leadership journey focusing both on knowledge building, as well as ‘Leadership in Action’. Here the author writes about his experience as a panellist at the Times Higher Education’s Global Sustainable Development Congress 2022, where he spoke about his experience in ASEFYLS4.
The Global Sustainable Development Congress 2022 was a unique platform set up by Times Higher Education (THE), in partnership with the University of Glasgow, that witnessed the participation of eminent world leaders from government, academics, corporations, and civil societies, to ensure a sustainable future. While SDGs were central to the conference, areas that were explored over a period of three days were education, gender, inequalities, health and well-being, and sustainable cities, among other prominent issues that matter to the world in the 21st century.
On the last day, I was invited to speak on a panel focused on the role of young people in galvanising support for the SDGs, which started with initial remarks on some of the ways that the panel members are taking action to engage and accelerate towards achieving the SDGs. That followed by a discussion on how organisations, and in particular academic institutions, play a critical role in informing young people about the global goals. My fellow panel member and I shared insights on the actions taken by higher education institutions (HEIs) around the globe in integrating SDGs in the curriculum, designing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) around SDGs, and the role of youth-led movements and clubs on campuses.
Actions spearheaded by youth-led movements were prominent in the discussion, while sharing platforms like the Mock COPs (Conference of Parties), which engages and amplifies the voices of young people on climate change around the globe and informs senior policymakers, state heads, corporate giants, participating at the COP. My closest and one of the most rewarding experiences in learning and acting on SDGs is my engagement with the 4th Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF)’s Young Leaders Summit (ASEFYLS4) 2021. ASEFYLS4 prepared the next generation of young leaders over a journey of 10-months and focused on empowering young professionals, civil society leaders and students on global goals, with the focus on SDG 3, 4, 8 and 13. Being one of the Indian delegates at ASEFYLS4, which comprised of a three-phased journey: a knowledge-building phase, where I learned about various SDGs and creative leadership; the leadership in the action phase, where we were required to work with peers and deliver a community project; and the final phase involved the actual summit, where young leaders like myself, got the opportunity to talk about their journey of 10-months, and their SDG-based project, on a global platform. I had the chance to work collaboratively on SDG 3, on a project around menstrual hygiene, along with colleagues from seven different ASEM countries. I am highly appreciative of this excellent model that supports, engages, and highlight young people on a large scale to accelerate towards achieving SDGs, which further brings a ripple effect, and every young leader serves as an ambassador.
Further conversation in the panel delved deeper into the actions required by the education institutions, and some of the top recommendations that came to light were infrastructure upgrades, providing a safe space for young people, to discuss problems and preparing SDG-based solutions to local problems. To which I additionally pitched in an example where I led a cloth-pad making workshop in an educational institution in Lucknow, India, that encouraged and mainstreamed the use of sustainable menstrual products. We also discussed how we can enhance the role of students in the curriculum development to make it more inclusive and youth-centric. Another example that I was able to share was that I remembered from a brainstorming session at ASEFYLS4, where we deliberated on incorporating a gender perspective and an SDG-lens in classrooms as an example, environment can be looked through climate justice and/or education technology can focus on improving girls’ participation in STEM, and increasing access to digital platforms for women, among others. Unique ideas like these evolve when young leaders from diverse geographies work on similar problems, but using different approaches to solve it, helps people to exchange thought-provoking solutions and make it applicable in their own context. This was made possible because ASEFYLS4 provided us with a safe space to brainstorm and helped connect us with leaders from UNESCO, and the College of Europe in Natolin, among other exceptional individuals from civil societies and intergovernmental organisations.
The session opened to some intriguing questions that stressed on providing more opportunities to young people on international forums and platforms, and not just as part of tokenism and a tick-box activity for compliance. The Q and A session also brought to the fore the urgent need for accountability and transparency in the functioning of the higher education systems towards the proliferation of the SDGs. Suggestions also came in to design a framework that registers and holds the higher education institutions accountable for their work and helps them align it with the global goals. ASEF also invests heavily and facilitates conversations between higher education institutions across ASEM, providing them an opportunity to exchange the best teaching and learning practices, and informing policies by collecting evidence. Again, this is a prime example of mapping HEIs across geographies and collaboratively working together to achieve the SDGs.
I am extremely grateful to the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) who gave me the extraordinary opportunity to speak at the Global Sustainable Development Congress 2022, co-organised by the Times Higher Education and the University of Glasgow, UK. I had the opportunity to interact with my co-panellists from different countries and listen to some of the most intriguing conversations on SDGs and its implementation around the globe, in the higher education landscape. Thankful to the entire organising team of the 4th ASEF Young Leader Summit, which gave me an opportunity of this stature.
Aashraya SETH is an alumnus of the 4th ASEF Young Leaders Summit (ASEFYYLS4). Aashraya is a social educator and innovator with experiences in qualitative research, youth mentoring and transformation of education systems. He is also a climate ambassador at Global Youth Climate Network of the World Bank Group. Aashraya founded the non-profit projects ‘STEMinism in India’ and ‘Project Red’, which engages young women and girls to promote participation in STEM fields and dismantle the stereotypes around menstruation. He was recently named amongst the Top-80 Social Innovators in India by Youth Co: Lab 2020, NITI Ayog and UNDP.
NOTE:
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely by the author(s) and do not represent that of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF).
Copyright © 2023.
