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Joaquín Torres, Professor of department of Construction, Installations and Structures of the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra.

Transforming our world drop by drop

Fri, 24 Nov 2017 10:56:00 +0000 Published in Navarra Newspaper

In 2000, world leaders pledged to achieve eight development Millennium Goals by 2015 in the areas of health, Education or in the fight against poverty. Some measures were put in place, but today, October 24, 2017, the world still aspires to the same unachieved goals.

Perhaps most encouraging is that the path taken with that milestone has been followed through. The 17 Sustainable development Goals and 169 targets adopted at the UN General Assembly in late summer 2015 demonstrate the magnitude of this ambitious new universal diary . These are intended to take up the Millennium development Goals and to realize human rights for all people, achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The goals and targets are integrated and indivisible and also combine the three dimensions of sustainable development : economic, social and environmental.

The UN Declaration of diary 2030 for Sustainable development presents measures at national, regional and global levels, but forgets - because it does not have skill on it - the most important dimension: the staff.

The same document is aware of this when it states that "we will be accompanied on our journey by governments, as well as parliaments, the United Nations system and other international institutions, local authorities, indigenous peoples, civil society, business and the private sector, academic community andacademia, and the entire population" (point 52 of the Declaration).

Only with the involvement staff of all is it possible to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity. L. B Johnson said that there is no problem that we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve alone. But that means doing our bit together with others.

If we cannot transform the whole world, let us begin by transforming what is in our hands, and with the means and talents we have at our disposal; let us try to transform what is immediate, what concerns us. To do so, we must allow ourselves to be challenged by what surrounds us.

A good example of how it is possible to work on an immediate scale is TANTAKA. Tantaka is the Solidarity Time Bank of the University of Navarra. It has the goal of making time -something we all have and we all consider valuable- available to organizations that are dedicated to meeting the social needs that arise in Navarra. Currently, there are more than 105 organizations with which it is collaborating and more than 112 projects are being attended -among them those of Tantaka-Arquitectura-, where a professional volunteer activities puts itself at the service of the organizations of financial aid social.

The United Nations General Assembly established October 24 as World Information Day on development in 1972to raise world public awareness of the problems and needs of development. Improving the dissemination of information and mobilizing public opinion, especially that of youth, is an important factor in achieving a better knowledge of the problems. And it is the first step, from a real knowledge , to become effectively involved for a better world, to the extent that each one is capable.

In today's interconnected world, information and communication technologies are valuable platforms for the dissemination of information and, moreover, have the potential to provide new solutions to the problems of development. It is not enough to see ourselves as distant from these problems, because we are a necessary part of the solution and it is up to us to share it.