Social Value Blog
International Day of Living Together in Peace
The International Day of Living Together in Peace, commemorated every year on 16th May, is a UN International Day designed to regularly mobilize the efforts of the international community to promote peace, tolerance, inclusion, understanding and solidarity.
World Refugee Day: How Can The Social Value Movement Help Tackle The Issues Of Forced Displacement?
World Refugee Day falls each year on 20th June and is dedicated to refugees around the globe. It is an international day designated by the UN to celebrate the strength and courage of those who have been forced to leave their homes behind, to build empathy and understanding for their plight, and to recognise their resilience in rebuilding their lives.
Equality, Wellbeing, And The SDGs: How Can We Address The Issues Of Covid-19 And Achieve The SDGs By 2030?
While overcoming the pandemic will certainly be an impressive feat and a demonstration of what we can achieve together if we set our priorities straight, it will not be the time to fall back into complacency. Continuing our work is not only vital to tackling the large-scale challenges of climate change and inequality but also to avoiding another devastating virus outbreak in the future. No country is on track to achieve the SDGs by 2030 and the pandemic has made the prospect of this even less likely. Although the future may currently seem bleak, we must hold firm in our convictions and not let the pandemic derail our vision of a more equitable and sustainable world for all. If we stop now, at defeating Covid-19, it is merely the equivalent of fixing a leaky faucet in a burning building.
We Can’t Achieve Social Value Without Achieving Social Justice
Social justice is central to the social value movement, and now more than ever it’s vital that we as a community stand up for social justice, equality and human rights.
To say the last few weeks have been difficult for our planet would be an understatement, to be honest, stating the last year’s been difficult would be too. Social justice has come into the spotlight, as it has many times before in human history, and we owe it to us and all future generations to not let this moment escape from us.
International Day Of Happiness: Towards A World Where Human Well-Being Takes Center Stage
When you ask people what they want most in life, a very common answer is “I just want myself and my loved ones to be happy.” Happiness is a feeling and therefore subjective but it is clear that with it, we tend to mean more than just a fleeting pleasurable emotion. Usually what we mean with it is “a deep[er] sense of flourishing” – a life of meaning, fulfilment, and stability.
Given that happiness seems to be something that most people ultimately want in life, and its benefits to society, one would expect it to be a central consideration in policy-making and increased human well-being to be a key indicator of progress. Instead, for too long, our understanding of development has been limited to the narrow concept of economic growth. Although a strictly economic tool, GDP per capita continues to be our main metric for measuring well-being.
Reducing Income Inequality
Valuation, especially of social and environmental outcomes is always guaranteed to elicit strong opinions from the “you can’t put a monetary value on everything” to the “you cannot make good decisions unless you know how important things are to people”. But either way, interest is growing….
Zero Discrimination Day: The Growth Of Inequalities Worldwide
‘…in 2015, all countries pledged to reduce inequality within and between countries as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. But it is not yet one that the world has delivered on.’
Reports from the UN show that inequality is growing for more than 70% of the global population. At a time of crisis, when the world has been ravaged by COVID-19, we need to move beyond promises to achieving social justice worldwide and move forth to achieve it….
World Day Of Social Justice 2021
In this blog, Social Value International’s Director of Impact, Dr. Adam Richards, reflects on the World Day of Social Justice 2021 and on the importance of the social value movement in combating inequality. While the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare and deepened existing inequalities, including the growing digital divide within, between and across developed and developing countries, it has also shown us that rapid and meaningful change is possible when we set our minds to it.