Director of the PwC Center for CSR at the Graduate School of Management St. Petersburg University (GSOM SPbU) Yury Blagov took part in the XVIII annual conference of the Donors Forum The Role of Philanthropy and Social Investments in Achieving the SDGs as a moderator of the business workshop SDG-4 Quality Education.

 

Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all is the fourth goal of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or SDG-4. This year, support for education associated with SDG-4 is attracting the attention of the expert community not only because of the traditional popularity of this area among businesses and charitable foundations, but also as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the educational process all over the world. 

 

«The UN Sustainable Development Goals represent a global agenda of a "new type", implying a deeper immersion of business in solving social and environmental problems, including through corporate philanthropy. The COVID-19 pandemic is just a particular case of an exacerbation of global problems. Accordingly, the toolkit, which has been successfully used by leading companies for a long time, in particular, the development of intra- and intersectoral partnerships, needs a certain rethinking. Without a deeper, equal participation in the reform of the education system, it will be more and more difficult for business to maintain its goal-setting within the framework of the win-win paradigm; and  even the most successful charitable programs and projects will be limited in time and scale», — said Yury Blagov.

 

During the workshop an open discussion was held on the actual problems facing corporate philanthropy in the field of education, and the results of an analytical study by the Donors' Forum were presented. The discussion was attended by Daria Durnova, Head of Human Resources and Social Policy of JSC Apatit, Alexander Arkhipov,  Executive Director of the SPbU Alumni Association, Julia Selyukova, Head of educational projects of SistemaCharitable Foundation, Irina Efremova-Gart, Head of Corporate Citizenship, IBM Russia/CIS, Olga Vokhmyanina, PR and Media at Donors Forum.