Sustainable Development Goals One of the UN Foundation’s overarching goals is to share awareness, advance progress, understand critical gaps, and activate communities in support of the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs, a set of 17 interlinked goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all," were adopted in 2015 by the
United Nations General Assembly as a successor to the
Millennium Development Goals. While all of the UN Foundation’s programs connect to at least one SDG (and often multiple), the Foundation also works to foster awareness and support of the SDGs among civil society, the private sector, academia, and engaged communities. The Foundation is also a key partner in
Global Goals Week, which runs parallel to the UN General Assembly week and engages diverse partnerships for the SDGs. The Foundation also houses the Business Council for the United Nations, which creates connections between the private sector and the UN in support of the UN’s priorities and the SDGs.
Global Health Global health, often with a focus on women and children, has been one of the UN Foundation’s key global issue areas. Over the Foundation’s first 20 years, 72% of grants fell under the issue area of global health. The Foundation works closely with private sector partners and UN agencies in order to address a variety of health issues including
universal health coverage,
antimicrobial resistance, and the response and recovery from
COVID-19. In addition, the UN Foundation has built partnerships and campaigns to address issues such as
measles and
rubella, childhood
vaccination, and
malaria. The
Measles & Rubella Initiative, launched in 2001, is a partnership between the UN Foundation, the
American Red Cross,
UNICEF, the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the
World Health Organization (WHO) in order to provide measles vaccinations to children across the African continent. This campaign not only focuses on vaccinating children, but also putting into place health infrastructure, and promoting better access to health-care across the continent. In ten years, the initiative has protected more than 5.5billion children from measles. The UN Foundation also runs the
Nothing But Nets Campaign, which is targeted at reducing malaria across the African continent. This campaign originally started when
Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilley published an article asking his readers to donate money to a campaign to buy mosquito nets for those in Africa suffering from malaria. With support from the UN Foundation, Reilley's project got off the ground, and has to-date provided over 13million nets across Africa. Today, the campaign also encourages Americans to learn about, advocate for, and donate to malaria eradication efforts. The UN Foundation's Shot@Life campaign educates, connects and empowers Americans to champion vaccines as one of the most cost-effective ways to save the lives of children in developing countries. The campaign encourages Americans to learn about, advocate for, and donate vaccines to decrease vaccine-preventable childhood deaths. As of 2019, Shot@Life had protected over $4.1billion in U.S. funding for global childhood immunization programs and helped provide more than 82million vaccines through direct grant support to UN partners. The UN Foundation is a communications and advocacy partner for the
Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a partnership that includes
Rotary International, the
Gates Foundation, UNICEF, CDC, and WHO. The initiative is dedicated to globally eradicating polio through vaccinations and has protected 2billion children from polio. Every Woman Every Child was launched by UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon during the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit in 2010 and aims to save and improve the lives of millions of women, children and adolescents around the world by 2030. It is a global effort to mobilize international and national action by governments, multilaterals, the private sector and civil society to address health challenges facing women and children around the world. In March 2020, at the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic, the UN Foundation launched the
COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund in partnership with the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation to raise funds for WHO’s COVID-19 response. The fund raised over $200million within six weeks, which went toward WHO’s efforts to track and understand the spread of the virus, to mobilize protective equipment to frontline health workers, and to develop vaccines, tests, and treatments. Beneficiaries of the fund were later expanded to include UNICEF, the
Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the
World Food Programme (WFP), the
UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The foundation also helped raise funds for the
Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator campaign by accepting donations through the ACT Together Fund. In September 2020, the UN Foundation launched its Unite for Health campaign, focused on the need for global collaboration amidst the disruption of health systems and services due to COVID-19, and the rollback of global health progress it brought.
Girls and Women Gender equality is another one of the Foundation’s key issue areas. The Foundation has several campaigns and initiatives that address gender issues; their work includes girls’ leadership and empowerment,
family planning and contraceptive access,
maternal health, and gender data. All its work on gender equality is represented by the Equal Everywhere brand and campaign that calls for all levels of society to make equality the reality of every girl and woman. The UN Foundation launched the Girl Up campaign in September 2010. This "for girls, by girls" campaign offers leadership development and education opportunities for adolescent girls. Through Girl Up's support, girls create middle school, high school, or campus clubs, which then plan events to raise money and awareness for the importance of women's issues. Money raised by the clubs is often used to support girls in developing countries so that they have the opportunity to become educated, healthy, safe, counted, and positioned to be the next generation of leaders. The Universal Access Project works to achieve universal access to reproductive health care by convening donors and advocates to protect and strengthen global
sexual and reproductive health and rights. Its goal is to increase and maintain the U.S. involvement and funding for global family planning by protecting key investments. Family Planning 2020, an outcome of the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, addresses the policy, financing, delivery and socio-cultural barriers to women accessing contraceptive information, services and supplies. Led by an 23-member Reference Group, operated daily by a Secretariat, and hosted by the United Nations Foundation, FP2020 is based on the principle that all women, no matter where they live should have access to lifesaving contraceptives. Data2X, a collaborative technical and advocacy platform, was formed after former
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for its creation in a policy speech in July 2012 and cited the lack of reliable and regular data on the lives of women and girls. Through research, advocacy and communications, Data2X works to improve the availability, quality, and use of gender data to make a practical difference in the lives of women and girls worldwide.
Climate and Environment The UN Foundation’s priorities include tackling global climate change, advancing climate diplomacy and negotiations, building cross-issue intersections, and communicating climate science to the public. The Foundation’s climate team works with partners in the
NGO sector, the UN, governments, and private corporations to come up with solutions and provide funding to programs related to this issue. The UN Foundation also advocates for the
Paris Agreement on climate change, particularly in the United States where it supports the
U.S. Climate Alliance, a
bipartisan coalition of
states and
unincorporated self-governing territories that are committed to upholding the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The UN Foundation also fosters the
Clean Cooking Alliance, an initiative supporting large-scale adoption of clean and safe household cooking solutions as a way to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and reduce climate change emissions. The alliance works with public, private, and non-profit partners to overcome market barriers that hamper the production, deployment, and use of clean cookstoves and fuels in the developing world. It works to develop standards for cleaner stoves and to increase public and policymaker awareness of the health and environmental benefits of improved stoves. ==Global Leadership Awards==