Antipoverty crusader Muhammad Yunus has called for using social
businesses to achieve sustainable development goals and transform the
world in a viable way.
“We do not want to miss this historic opportunity to transform the
world in the next 15 years,” Yunus said in a recorded speech aired on
Thursday during the seventh Global Social Business Summit currently
taking place in Berlin.
Yunus said although he could not make it to the summit because of sudden illness his heart is with the event.
Themed “Creating a World Without Poverty and Unemployment”, the
three-day annual gathering is taking place on the grounds of historic
Berlin Tempelhof Airport.
The summit is organised by the Grameen Creative Lab in Germany and
the Yunus Centre in Bangladesh in partnership with German tourism agency
visitBerlin, the YY Foundation of Germany and Yunus Social Business.
Some are saying that there are too many or too few sustainable
development goals (SDGs), according to Yunus. “But the important thing
is that you cannot ignore a single goal.”
“These are the goals that are knitted in our hearts. We have firm
commitments to achieving these goals -- we have to make sure that it
happens.”
He said the 17 SDGs and the Three Zeros -- Zero Poverty, Zero
Unemployment and Zero Net Carbon Emissions -- together can transform the
world in a completely different way.
The GSBS kicked off with performance from Syrian rock band Khebez
Dawle. Its members -- Hekmat Qassar, Anas Maghrebi and Muhammad Bazz --
fled the ongoing war in their home country and reached Berlin a month
ago as refugees.
They sang, in Arabic lyrics, to communicate what they went through before coming to the German capital.
The Grameen Bank founder, who was part of the UN Secretary
General's advisory committee on the Millennium Development Goals, the
predecessor of the SDGs, said although the 17 SDGs were adopted by the
United Nations, everyone should play a part in meeting the goals.
“It is also down to us and the youth community to reach the goals,” Yunus said.
He said all human beings are creative and are born entrepreneurs and
their creativeness and entrepreneurial skills have to be utilised to
achieve the SDGs.
Yunus called for equipping the youth with technology in order to achieve goals.
“If we can empower the youth with technology, they will be
unbeatable. And if we can put the social business engine in the picture,
we will be able to achieve positive results.”
Hans Reitz, head of Global Social Business Summit, said the social
business movement started in Bangladesh and it is expanding to other
countries.
The current economic system has to be redesigned in a way that it can shape villages, cities and countries, Reitz added.
Burkhard Kieker, chief executive of visitBerlin, said the summit is
taking place at a time when they are setting up 200 beds for Syrian
refugees in the two hangars of the historic airport, which is not
functional anymore.
The summit can help give new ideas such that these people can have a chance to have a new future, he said.
Lamiya Morshed, executive director of Dhaka-based Yunus Centre, said:
“We are trying to make impossible possible through social business.”
During an expert dialogue styled “From the homo economicus to a human
economy' on Wednesday, Tania Singer, director of Max Planck Institute
for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, asked the businesses to be more
compassionate to create a more caring society.
She said the current incentive system in the business world, which
awards individual efforts, has created a sort of addiction among the
employees. So, the businesses should award the collective effort behind
their success.
Joining her on the stage was Emmanuel Faber, chief executive of
French food company Danone, one of the first companies in the world to
have started social business.
Faber said: “We have committed ourselves to the model because it is
reassuring. We know this will create values in the long run.”
“We know profit is a consequence, but a living organisation has to do
it in a sustainable way.” A number of participants said the absence of
Yunus in the summit would be largely felt.
“At the same time, we have to keep working, keeping in mind that the
idea is bigger than the individuals,” said Uwe Heuser, head of editorial
business department of Die Zeit, a German national weekly newspaper,
who moderated the dialogue.
One participant said this is the time to show Yunus that the tree of social business has grown.
Also on Thursday, three panel discussions on social business took place.
In the discussion styled 'Spreading Social Business from Bangladesh
into the World', Huzzatul Islam Latifee, managing director of Grameen
Trust; M Shahjahan, former MD of Grameen Bank; Parveen Mahmud, MD of
Grameen Telecom Trust; and Ashraful Hassan, MD of Grameen Telecom, took
part.