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Meet SDG 8 Youth Ambassador in Russia – 2020!

17.09.2020

Veronika Yakovleva – SDG8 Youth Ambassador in Russia: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

Veronika graduated from the International Law Faculty of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, as well as the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation with a degree in corporate finance.

Currently, Veronika is a lawyer and a managing director of the Youth Finance League (YFL). Within the YFL, she is implementing a project to improve the financial literacy of young people, a webinar course to support business in the era of coronavirus, is preparing a youth vision of anti-crisis strategy and development of the international direction of YFL. In 2020 Veronica is the head of the organizing committee of the EU — Russia Student Conference «Breaking Down Barriers».

Which global trends do you think will have the greatest impact on our future? How important is it for countries to work together to cope with these trends — or is it irrelevant?

– The pandemic has shown the world how dangerous health risks can be for humanity. Attempts by governments to prevent the spread of the virus and possible deaths have led to new economic and environmental challenges.  Despite the fact that the nature of this type of coronavirus is still being studied, at this level of development of science and technology it seems possible to create artificial biological weapons that can significantly affect the development of individual countries and the world as a whole. I believe that states should prevent such technologies from falling into private hands and, using the current situation as an example, develop a plan of action for the future in case of similar threats to the health of citizens.

What would you advise the UN Secretary-General to do to address the global challenges?

– Despite the existence of global problems, which can be solved only through the efforts, if not by all, then by at least the majority of UN member states, nowadays there is obviously a crisis of many integration processes both at the international level and at the level of individual regions.  One of the UN goals, enshrined in its Charter, is development of friendly relations between nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. I believe that it is important for the UN (without interfering in internal affairs of member-states) to make efforts to preserve the status of the central coordinating body within the system of international relations, preventing separation of member-states and their policy aimed at creating competition instead of cooperation.