UOC academic year launched by Cristina Gallach, Spain's High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda

According to Gallach, the 2030 Agenda is a "global plan to tackle the environmental, social and economic problems caused by globalization". She believes that implementing it in Spain "will help organize the work to be done on public policies and mobilize the resources necessary to bring about change". 

The 2030 Agenda was published four years ago, on 25 September 2015, after 193 countries reached an agreement on 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Gallach pointed out how the 17 SDGs cover "all areas related to preserving our environment, to people, and to the methodology, ie how we should achieve this transformation: through partnerships".

She explained how "it is the first time that the whole international community – led by the United Nations – has presented a major plan for transformation," which is aimed at all countries, no matter whether they are more advanced or less so. She also told us that "the political action of governments, the institutions in each country, and citizens should adopt and press this Agenda to ensure each government finds ways to apply it in accordance with their needs".

Gallach also stressed the importance of "the special role played by citizens, especially new generations, who realize that the world they are inheriting is not what they want". Spain's High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda says the SDGs will be met if we can achieve a combination of public policy and private sector action, in which universities, science, innovation and technology must all play a very important role.

"Universities must spearhead the 2030 Agenda"

Cristina Gallach sees the 2030 Agenda as a learning process in which we must "use science and innovation", which are two "major instruments for change". For this reason, she believes that innovation and research, work that takes place in universities, are a crucial lever to achieving the SDGs. Gallach wants universities to feel that the Agenda is their own, "to analyse and study how to participate, to convey it to their people – who are mostly young people who yearn for these changes – and to mobilize them. [...] Universities must spearhead the 2030 Agenda."

About Cristina Gallach

Cristina Gallach has been the Spanish Government's High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda since July 2018, a role in which she is responsible for coordinating the country's implementation of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Her extensive professional experience is rooted in the fields of communication, international relations, security, defence, and development policies. She is closely acquainted with EU institutions, and joined the Council of the European Union in 1999. Furthermore she is the only woman from Spain to have occupied important positions in all three of the major international organizations: the EU, the UN and NATO.