Public-private partnerships are critical in addressing global challenges

The United Nations embarked on an ambitious effort to define forward-looking objectives – the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – to address global economic, social, and health challenges. This exercise represented a unique opportunity to mobilize the international community around the importance of private sector-led growth and a more robust, inclusive global economy that makes significant strides towards eradicating poverty and improving the lives of people everywhere. World leaders are gathering in New York for the United Nation’s SDGs Summit, and Bechtel was among the businesses supporting this ambitious effort to transform our world by addressing global issues.
 
Our contributions to define the critical role infrastructure plays in sustainable progress helped shape the development of the USCIB SDGs and the web portal, which aims to stimulate more productive partnerships between the public and private sectors in support of the SDGs. The Business for 2030 portal features more than 80 real-world examples, including ones provided by Bechtel, of company initiatives and public-private partnerships, organized in relation to over 50 of the business-relevant SDG targets.
 
“We wanted to highlight concrete initiatives and partnerships that our members and partners are undertaking to support the 2030 Agenda,” said USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson. “We believe that Business for 2030 can inspire renewed trust in the private sector, while catalyzing active, sustained business engagement in support of the SDGs.”
 
At the September 24 session, USCIB member companies and international business representatives will engage with the broader development community to provide deeper context to a selection of the diverse examples featured on the Business for 2030 web portal. There will be special focus on the critical role of infrastructure in catalyzing progress on the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and the need to transform partnerships globally and locally, through enhanced national development strategic planning and coordination for achieving the SDGs.

We are entering a new era of industrial development where a rethinking of infrastructure, as it relates to achieving the SDGs, is critical. Enhanced collaboration between civil society, government, and business in the planning, design and implementation of core and social infrastructures should grow economies; build resiliency; and help to solve societal problems. Infrastructure development, similar to any development initiative, is more successful and sustainable when it involves all key stakeholders in decision-making and, where possible, the planning and execution of project