ASTANA – The first Center for Sustainable Development opened in Kazakhstan’s Satbayev University on Sept. 6 in Almaty, reported the university’s press service.
The opening ceremony took place during an international round table titled UN Sustainable Development Goals: Principles of Environmental Safety. Photo credit: Satbayev University.
The opening ceremony took place during an international round table titled the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): Principles of Environmental Safety, aimed at accelerating and coordinating research efforts to advance and promote reliable and practical solutions to global environmental challenges by uniting the country’s ecological community under the auspices of Satbayev University.
The event also included adopting the university’s SDG strategy for the countries’ prosperity, designed primarily to address Kazakhstan’s water security and education quality, the key tasks outlined in the President’s state-of-the-nation address.
As the first and so far the only participant from Kazakhstan in the UN Global Compact, Satbayev University is authorized to pursue the 17 SDGs both at the national and global levels, including poverty and hunger eradication, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, and clean water and sanitation, among others.
The Center for Sustainable Development was opened to drive changes by developing new technologies and methods to help reduce the negative human impact on the environment, raise people’s awareness about sustainable development issues, and offer ways to solve them.
Participants praised opening such an important center, which will play a key role in fostering economic growth and improving society’s living conditions.
University’s business partner Dauren Sabdenov donated two Honda first-generation electric crossover cars to support its green initiatives.
Satbayev University’s Rector Meiram Begentayev encouraged collective efforts toward a shared sustainable future.
“We will collaborate to find ways to solve problems that affect each of us in one way or another,” he said.
The event was attended by Chairperson of the Committee on Control in Education and Science Gulzat Kobenova, UN Resident Coordinator for Kazakhstan Michaela Friberg-Storey, representative of UN Global Communications Department Vlastimil Samek, UN Global Compact Coordinator in Kazakhstan Dinara Seijaparova, Head of the Political Cooperation Department of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry Almasha Arenova, Programme Analyst of the Energy and Environment Department at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Kazakhstan Assel Nurbekova, Chinese Consul General in Almaty Zhang Wei, and others.
