United Nations New Global Campaign Center in Bonn

Bonn · It’s the newest member of the United Nations in Bonn and it will help make the city on the Rhine a hub for sustainability. A sneak preview was given of the new Global Campaign Center.

Bonn is big on sustainability and on Thursday, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Action Campaign gave a glimpse behind the scenes of it’s new Global Campaign Center in Haus Carstanjen. Since the center moved in, it has become very colorful. There are 17 bright colors on posters, panels, walls and on a wheel, the symbol of the UN campaign. Each color represents one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

An interactive tour highlighted the Campaign’s work, showing a virtual reality film, a survey which will keep track of progress made on the SDGs, and other features. The new center should help boost the UN in Bonn as a hub of global sustainability, and is supported by the German federal government. At the new center, UN employees see themselves as in touch - within reach of all citizens. Virtual reality is also key - you can enter a street scene in Liberia after the Ebola epidemic or get to know residents of the Gaza strip. People should be able to see why the development goals are important and how the world’s problems actually look like.

Mitchell Toomey is Global Director of the UN SDG Campaign and he struck a positive chord about Bonn and Germany, “The establishment of the Global Campaign Center in Bonn is testament to Germany’s unwavering commitment to the SDGs, and the international quality of Bonn as a UN city and a sustainability hub”. The Campaign is focused on inspiring citizens to become engaged and involved in supporting the Sustainable Development Goals, bringing them closer to the people and decision-makers. Toomey took visitors into the Campaign’s own TV studio, where news will be produced for the whole world. He said Germany’s time zone in central Europe was advantageous for real-time communication because contacts could be reached in many countries. “It was very different in New York,” he remarked.

Dr. Gerd Müller, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development said he was pleased that the UN chose to put the Campaign Center in Bonn. “There are now 1,100 UN staff working in Bonn, from where the UN SDG Action Campaign will spread the ideas of the Agenda for Sustainable Development around the globe. The Global Campaign Center can be assured of strong support for its work from the German government,” he commented.

The Campaign is scheduled to run until the year 2030. With that in mind, visitors were invited to write down their wishes for 2030 and hang them on a Christmas tree at the center. One German text read, “I wish that...that nobody will starve...by 2030.” Other wishes were water for everyone, peace and education. Currently, there are 19 UN organizations in Bonn; the SDG Action Campaign is the newest member. An official public announcement about the new UN organization will be made at the World Congress Center Bonn (WCCB) on March 1 - 3.

(Orig. text: Bettina Köhl/Carol Kloeppel)

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