Partners

The United Nations collaborate with creative agencies, the entertainment industry, media organizations and businesses who are committed to achieving the sustainable development goals. Here are few of our successful partnerships.

SDG Media Zone

The United Nations, in collaboration with the UN Foundation and Pvblic Foundation, organizes the SDG Media Zones at high-level events to engage people all over the world in the important conversations happening around the SDGs.

The #SDGLive format of interviews, panel discussions and other digital content, seeks to create, connect, and highlight the initiatives that the global community are working on to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Bringing together well-known personalities and Member States as well as content creators, influencers and media partners, the SDG Media Zone provides a dynamic space to strengthen the commitment of the international community in support of the 2030 Agenda.

Read more about the SDG Media Zone during UNGA73, 2018 here.

SMedia

Launched by the United Nations in September 2018 by more than 30 founding media organizations – encompassing more than 100 media and entertainment outlets – the SDG Media Compact seeks to inspire media and entertainment companies around the world to leverage their resources and creative talent to advance the Goals.

Achieving the SDGs by 2030 will require concerted actions by civil society, businesses, international bodies, organizations of faith, and individuals, among other actors. Media play a particularly critical role in supporting public dialogue and enhancing knowledge on ways to support sustainable development and achieve the Goals.

Read more about the launch and the founding media organizations here.

Mobile Industry

GSMA, which represents the interests of nearly 800 mobile operators worldwide, and Project Everyone, a non-profit global campaign to spread the messaging of the SDGs, collaborated with the United Nations to develop the SDGs in Action app, now available in the six official UN languages.

The app provides detailed information on the goals, videos, key facts and figures, and the latest sustainable development news around the world. The app also allows the user to create their own action that support the goals, and invite other users to join.

Advertising Industry

In June 2016, former UNSG Mr. Ban Ki-moon launched the Common Ground Initiative at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, bringing together six of the world’s largest communications companies – Dentsu, Havas, Interpublic Group, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe and WPP – who have agreed to lend their expertise in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Each of the six companies focuses on an issue under the SDGs – zero hunger, health, education, gender, water and sanitation and climate.

A new advertising agency, Wieden + Kennedy, recently joined to focus on the migrant and refugee crisis, in particular to lend its support for the Secretary-General’s Together campaign.

In 2018, a campaign called Litte by Little launched with an aim to create a movement among Gen Z to support the SDGs via social media videos and the hashtag #littlexlittle.

An ActNow.bot, a fully interactive and responsive chat bot, was launched in December 2018. Located via the UN’s Facebook Messenger, the bot suggests everyday actions that can be taken to preserve the environment. The collective actions will be presented during the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in New York in September 2019.

Creative Community

The United Nations partners and collaborates with creative industries such as Sony Pictures Entertainment and Mattel, to promote the Sustainable Development Goals to a wide audience in countries all around the world.

With a focus on youth, campaigns like Thomas and Friends, #AngryBirdsHappyPlanet coinciding with the International Day of Happiness; and Small Smurfs Big Goals, millions of people have learned and engaged with the Goals in a way that is informative and fun.

Read more about the Thomas and Friends campaign here.

Spotlight Initiative

The European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) has embarked on a new, global, multi-year initiative focused on eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) – the Spotlight Initiative.

The Initiative is so named as it brings focused attention to this issue, moving it into the spotlight and placing it at the centre of efforts to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It will respond to all forms of VAWG, with a particular focus on domestic and family violence, sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices, femicide, trafficking in human beings and sexual and economic (labour) exploitation.