In the face of toughest global challenges, the United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation) links problems with solutions to foster global peace, prosperity, and justice. It connects people, ideas, and resources to help the United Nations (UN) solve the most intractable global problems, such as energy access, climate change, global health, women’s empowerment, population, hunger, and poverty eradication. In fact, it literally reflects its motto, “Connecting You with the United Nations.”

Established by entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner in 1998, the UN Foundation has been an advocate for the UN and helped the UN address pressing and far-reaching international issues through partnerships, campaigns, and fundraising.

A worldwide partnership between the public and private sectors is indispensable and very significant. The UN Foundation has a wide range of dynamic and win-win partnerships with corporations, organizations, and influences around the world. Since the UN Foundation was founded, it has established more than 300 organizational partnerships with over 40 UN agencies and more than 100 governments.

A great example of its corporate partnership is the collaboration between NBA Cares and the UN Foundation campaign Nothing But Nets, a global grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa. Not only does the message about malaria reach wide audiences via the platform provided by NBA Cares, but it also highlights the involvement of NBA Cares in the campaign. In this way, the UN Foundation offers its partners the ability to do good in the world while also promotes their corporate causes.

To strengthen the connection between the UN and influences, the UN Foundation supports the UN Department of Public Information (DPI) to run the UN Creative Community Outreach Initiative (CCOI), which acts as a liaison between the UN and top level content creators, such as directors, new media professionals, and writers. The initiative aims to inform people about the activities of the UN and its priority issues via TV, film, music, and new media.

Because of the approaching 2015 deadline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a blueprint accepted by all the world’s countries and leading development institutions, discussion over the Post-2015 Development Agenda has become one of the most important and influential conversations of this century. As a longstanding and strong supporter of the UN, the UN Foundation will convene informal meetings and workshops on thematic issues and facilitate global dialogues among developing country think tanks, thought leaders, civil society and private sector partners.

– Liying Qian

Sources: UN Foundation, UN Business, UN CCOI, UN Association
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