BE OPEN at the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development 2025 at the UN in Geneva

LUGANO, Switzerland, April 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- On April 2-3, BE OPEN joined the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development 2025 at the UN offices in Geneva. The theme of the forum was "Advancing Sustainable, Inclusive, Science- and Evidence-based Solutions for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its SDGs". The forum brought together UN governments, international organizations, civil society, academia, youth, the private sector and other stakeholders to discuss strategies for accelerating the insufficient progress towards the SDGs.

The Forum started with the High-level Policy Segment titled "Sustainable, inclusive, science- and evidence based solutions to accelerate SDG progress". It featured addresses by Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN; Tatiana Molcean, UNECE Executive Secretary; Ivana Živković, UNDP Regional Director for Europe and the CIS and Vice-Chair of the UN Regional Collaborative Platform for Europe and Central Asia. The cross-cutting message of the UN leaders conveyed the sense of emergency, need for heightened commitment and action towards the sustainable agenda.

Efforts to reach the goals in the UNECE region by 2030 continue to face strong headwinds from economic uncertainties, political shifts, ongoing conflicts and planetary crisis. According to UNECE's newly released report on SDG progress, only 17% of the 125 measurable targets will be reached by 2030, while for 84 targets, progress needs to accelerate, and for 20 targets, the current trend must be reversed.

The theme of the forum was of particular relevance for BE OPEN, since the foundation's ongoing international student competition is called Designing Futures 2050: it is primarily focused on encouraging the creation of innovative solutions by younger people with the hope to contribute to the realistic implementation of sustainability values, their adjustment to the circumstances of today, and implantation of sustainable principles into the approaches, practices and ambitions of upcoming professionals and future leaders of the change.

On behalf of BE OPEN, Founder Elena Baturina pointed out: "Though on a smaller scale, BE OPEN's sustainability programme has very similar objectives: to raise awareness of the SDGs and the necessity of urgent action among the students preparing to enter their professional careers; to involve them into adjusting and updating the plan of actions on the SDGs agenda in the light of the realities of today, and encourage them to take a larger part in the actualization and implementation of the realistic sustainable actions plan. We hope that our programme will make its contribution to ensuring that younger generations approach the 2050 and further agendas with knowledge, skill, responsibility and passion."

BE OPEN continuously supports and awards younger people for developing solutions aimed at contributing to how we can transform inadequate systems and create better conditions for an equitable and environmentally prosperous world.

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