The United Nations has no jurisdiction to change laws or practices within the United States.
For the 2030 Agenda to have impact, decision-makers and money people, both public and private, have to sign on. And sign on they have, with enthusiasm, though with more success so far in the private sector.
Here is a look at two of the most prominent US NGOs that are aggressively pushing the 2030 Agenda/SDGs:
The Tacticians: The United Nations Foundation and The Brookings Institution
In 1997, CNN founder Ted Turner pledged a $1 billion gift to the United Nations, the largest private gift the agency had ever received. That money seeded the United Nations Foundation, created in 1998 with an initial policy focus on “Women and population stabilization, sustainable environment and climate change, children’s health, and strengthening the U.N. system.” (New York Times, May 20, 1998.)
The foundation has since updated its mission statement to focus on the SDGs:
We act as a strategic partner to help the UN mobilize the ideas, people, and resources it needs to deliver, and grow a diverse and durable constituency for collective action. We focus on issues at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals, build initiatives across sectors to solve problems at scale, and engage influencers and citizens who seek action. Partnership, and the power of smart and strategic collaboration, is in our DNA. We believe everyone has a part to play, everyone’s voice should be heard, and everyone has a stake.
https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-mission/
The UN Foundation is an umbrella organization. Located under the umbrella are:
- United Nations Association chapters (“The United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) is a movement of Americans dedicated to supporting the United Nations. With over 20,000 members (60% under the age of 26) and more than 200 chapters across the country, UNA-USA members are united in their commitment to global engagement and their belief that each of us can play a part in advancing the UN’s mission and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.”) https://unausa.org/mission/
- The Business Council for the United Nations (“BCUN connects forward-thinking companies with the UN to advance action on the SDGs and our shared goals around global health, climate action, gender equality and other critical issues.”) https://www.businesscouncilfortheun.org/about
- The UN Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council (“a strategic advisory council that brings together entrepreneurs and thought leaders who are committed to finding innovative solutions to global problems and helping the world deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).) https://unfoundation.org/what-we-do/initiatives/global-entrepreneurs-council/
In addition, the UN Foundation “partners” with more than 80 other entities, including a roll call of many of the world’s most prominent corporations (Amazon Web Services, Bank of America, Unilever, Google, to name just a few), to promote the SDGs and “forg[e] a more . . . sustainable future.” https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-partners/
• • •
The Brookings Institution is a left-leaning thinktank that works hand-in-hand with the UN Foundation. (To get a taste of Brookings’ point of view, visit articles on its website such as, “Why Federalism Has Become Risky for American Democracy”, and “Democracy on the ballot − How many election deniers are on the ballot in November, and what is their likelihood of success?” https://www.brookings.edu/ )
In 2019, Brookings launched “the SDG Leadership Cities Network” to boost local implementation of the 2030 Agenda. https://www.brookings.edu/essay/sdg-leadership-cities-network-and-toolkit/ Then, in 2020, Brookings created an arm of the Institution devoted exclusively to promoting the SDGs, the “Center for Sustainable Development.” According to its director, the Center’s SDG-promoting mission includes tackling “systemic issues of racism, exclusion and inequality.” https://www.brookings.edu/news-releases/brookings-launches-the-center-for-sustainable-development/
Brookings “supports” the work of local jurisdictions by partnering with, and receiving money from, grant-making foundations: “This initiative of the Brookings Institution is supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and Rockefeller Bellagio Center.” https://www.brookings.edu/about-the-local-leadership-on-the-sustainable-development-goals/ The foundations, in turn, undertake efforts to advance the SDGs, sponsoring their own “initiatives” and “methodologies,” and making direct grants to communities.
• • •
In 2022, Brookings and the UN Foundation released a joint report lamenting the US’s failure to better implement the SDGs. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022_Brookings_State-of-SDGs-in-the-US.pdf It provides a convenient window into the thought processes of pro-2030 Agenda, globalist NGOs.
The State of the SDGs in the United States breathes a sigh of relief that the Trump Administration has given way to the Biden Administration (“Shifting away from the ‘America First’ foreign policy of the Trump administration, the Biden administration is seeking to revitalize its alliances and reestablish its leadership in mobilizing collective action on humanitarian and development issues, for which the SDGs can be an essential asset”).
The report displays great concern for what other nations think of the United States. It calls on the US government to assert “global leadership” and reestablish “credibility”; decries what it sees as the past waste of US “political capital,” and asserts the need for the US to “win[] favor” with other nations to advance the SDG agenda.
The worldview of the report is, not surprisingly, collectivist. The authors endorse a “whole-of-society approach to progress” as measured by the SDGs. Pointing to entities in the private sector, like universities and philanthropies, that have freely aligned their decision-making processes to the SDGs, the report says the initiatives “point to a growing SDG ecosystem of action”. Yes, they do. And the authors want the federal government to do more as well. In its recommendations, the report:
- Calls on the President, Secretary of State, and other “high-level” political officials to “publicly signal U.S. commitment to the SDGs”
- Asks the government to conduct a “Voluntary National Review” of SDG progress and present it to the UN (in part because “all the other G7, G20, and OECD countries” have done so)
- Suggests the Biden Administration re-tool the language it uses to describe its development efforts, to use the SDGs as the “lingua franca” of its communications − again, to impress the rest of the world
- Calls for the creation of “a cabinet-level SDG Council” to coordinate foreign and domestic policy around the SDGs
- And seeks a “national roadmap” to track SDG progress in the US
• • •
Some Congressional Moves Related to the SDGs
Nine days before President Biden took office, on January 11, 2021, California Representative Barbara Lee introduced House Resolution 30, “Supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.” Several weeks later, it was referred to a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where it remains. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/30/all-actions?overview=closed#tabs
On September 15, 2022, during the same week as the UN General Assembly meetings in New York, the Chairman of that subcommittee, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, held what one witness called “the first hearing exclusively about the SDGs in the seven years they’ve been active.” https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2022/9/the-sustainable-development-goals-and-recovery-from-the-covid-19-pandemic-implications-for-us-policy
The hearing witnesses echoed many of the same views expressed in the Brookings/UN Foundation report (asking Congress to require the administration to make a voluntary national report on SDG progress to present to the UN; calling for increased Executive Branch focus on the SDGs; seeking disaggregation of data by identity factors, to name a few). They also claimed that US failure to join with the global community in making the SDGs a priority creates a power vacuum that the Chinese Communist Party and Russia are eager to exploit.
Two weeks after chairing this hearing, Rep. Castro signed on as a co-sponsor of Rep. Lee’s SDG resolution. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/30/cosponsors
• • •
Next, we will look at some of the ways in which the SDGs are affecting life in the real world.
Part One: https://basedbytes.com/united-nations-agenda-2030/