“Jeffrey Sachs— Discussing Sustainability in the Pandemic Era”

• Yeosijae to hold online seminars with UN SDSN and Chatham House
• Won-Soo Kim, the chair of the International Advisory Board at Yeosijae, to host the dialogue on May 26th
• To be broadcasted live on Yeosijae’s Youtube channel with simultaneous interpretation

The Future Consensus Institute (Yeosijae) will be hosting 「The Post-COVID-19: Global Future Dialogue」 with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Chatham House to discuss the future beyond COVID-19 and the path toward a better future.

The first session with the UN SDSN is scheduled to begin at 9 A.M. KST on May 26th, featuring in-depth discussions on 1. Sustainability in the Pandemic Era, 2. The Global Health Regime, 3. De-globalization, and 4. The Future of Urban Life and Work, under the main theme of ‘the New Normal After COVID-19’.

Participants Won-Soo Kim, the former Under-Secretary-General of the UN and the Chair of the International Advisory Board at Yeosijae, and Jeffrey D. Sachs, the Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, will offer insights into the challenges of sustainability in the context of COVID-19, the threats in global governance amid the G2 conflict, and new opportunities that will emerge.

The session with Chatham House is scheduled to begin at 5 P.M. KST on May 29th, under the main theme of ‘the Post-COVID-19 Global Order and the US-China Relations’. The participants include: Lindsay Newman, Senior Fellow, US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House; Won-Soo Kim, Chair of the International Advisory Board at Yeosijae; Robin Niblett CMG, Director of Chatham House; and John Nilsson-Wright, Senior Research Fellow, Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House;

The seminars will be live-streamed with simultaneous interpretation, on Yeosijae’s YouTube channel (Link).

[Participants]

Jeffrey David Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries. He is the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He has twice been named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. Professor Sachs currently serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and is a Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the Sustainable Development Goals. He previously advised UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on both the Sustainable Development Goals and Millennium Development Goals and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria.

Ambassador Won-soo Kim, former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, has four decades of diplomatic career both as a Korean diplomat and an international civil servant. Over the last decade from 2007 to 2017, he served at the senior-most level of the UN, including the Under-Secretary-General as the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs and Assistant Secretary-General as the Deputy Chef de Cabinet for the Secretary-General. For three decades before joining the UN, he worked as the Korean diplomat including as the Secretary to the President of the Republic of Korea for Foreign Affairs and Trade as well as for International Security at the Blue House (Korean Presidential Office), and the Director-General for Policy Planning and Ambassador for Regional Security in the Foreign Ministry. He also served in several overseas postings in Washington, DC of the USA, New Delhi of India, and the UN in New York.

After retirement from the UN in 2017, he has taught at several higher education/academic institutions in Korea. He serves as the Chair of the International Advisory Board for the Future Consensus Institute (Yeosijae) in Korea. He is also an Eminent Person for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) and a Board Member for the Ban Ki-moon Center for Global Citizens in Vienna, Austria.

[About Yeosijae]

The Future Consensus Institute (Yeosijae) is a solution-oriented think tank founded in December 2015, by the honorary chairman of furniture maker Hanssem, Chang-Gul Cho. Our mission is to develop policy suggestions for the future of a unified Korea and Northeast Asia, while fostering the next generation of leaders.

The name ‘Yeosijae’ comes from the phrase in one of the Chinese Confucian classics ‘ZhouYi’, literally meaning a ‘house that goes together with the era’. The English name ‘Future Consensus Institute’ reflects our mission to create the future through the wisdom and cooperation of contemporary people.