2019 SDG Week

## Themes and activity

Global Goals Week 2019 took place concurrently with Climate Week NYC 2019, from September 21 to 28. The theme was: "Action for People and Planet". There were 72 Global Goals Week events, 68 events from the SDG Action Zone, 351 events from Climate Week NYC, and 2981 actions, including events, from the SDG Action Campaign. Around 107,000 people attended online and around 30,000 people attended in-person.

The week included the events of the UN Summits Week, comprising the UN-Secretary-General's Climate Action Summit, a High-level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage; the SDG Summit; the 2019 High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development (FfD); and a High-level Review of Progress on SAMOA Pathway.

Other events included:

* Youth Climate Summit
* Social Good Summit
* Global Week to Act for SDGs
* Private Sector Forum
* International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD)
* Sustainable Development Impact Summit
* Equator Prize 2019 Award Ceremony
* Bloomberg Global Business Forum
* SDG Business Forum
* UN Solutions Summit
* AI (artificial intelligence) Sustainable Development Summit.

A range of commitments were announced in 2019. These include financial commitments, partnerships, initiatives and activists.

Initiatives included:

* The Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation supported the launch of the University Global Compact.
* WFP and Alibaba Group unveiled “Hunger Map Live”, a digital map to track food-security issues across the globe.
* Open Government Partnership's Acceleration Action on its recently launched coalition on justice.
* Google presented innovations in AI to advance the Global Goals and highlighted the work from their Impact Challenge grantees.

Activist events included:

* Activists and leaders from across all sectors came together at the SDG Action Zone alongside UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed to pledge their commitment to a super year of activism in 2020, to kickstart a Decade of Action for the SDGs.
* Trisha Shetty (SheSays) focused on empowering women and girls, ensuring no-one is left behind.
* Kennedy Odede (SHOFCO and World Poverty Forum) focused on tackling poverty and reducing inequality, looking ahead to the World Poverty Forum in January, to be held in Kibera, Kenya's biggest slum.
* Kumi Naidoo (Amnesty International) focused on grassroots civil activists whose lives are at risk worldwide.
* Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (actor and UNDP Goodwill Ambassador) focused on the power of stories to galvanize movements for change.
* SDG Advocates Alaa Murabit and Richard Curtis called on all sectors and citizens to mobilize in 2020 for the super year of activism ahead.

Examples of financial commitments:

* UNICEF and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) launched an innovative fund that will open new opportunities for Muslim philanthropyto reach the millions of children currently in need of humanitarian support and help achieve the SDGs.
* Mastercard’s Michael Froman and Global Fund Chairman Donald Kaberuka reported on Mastercard’s new partnership with Step Up the Fight, a Global Fund initiative that proposes to raise $14 billion by 2023 for the fight against HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. Of that $14 billion, the Global Fund is advocating for the private sector to mobilize at least $1 billion to expedite progress toward SDG 3 and universal health coverage.
* Colombian President Iván Duque and Howard G. Buffett discussed private capital and public policy levers that can support sustainable peace in Colombia, as well as how the Howard G. Buffett Foundation is elevating its investments in Colombia’s agriculture industries in line with the country’s peace process.