A Correspondent:
New York: Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus yesterday said the persistent shadow of global conflict threatens peace, stability and development.
He made the remark while delivering his Keynote Speech at the UN High Level Side Event on Social Business, Youth and Technology at UN Headquarters in New York.
“Yesterday, more than ever, the future stands at a crossroads. Wildfires of climate change scorch the earth. Inequality deepens. Conflicts rage,” the chief adviser said.
He said the struggle for justice and peace tests “our very humanity”, while these crises are interconnected threads, each pulling at the other, shaping the whole of their existence.
“The power to mend this tapestry does not lie in the past—it lies in the future we dare to imagine, and in the choices we make here and now,” Prof Yunus said.
He also said the path to a better world is built with yesterday’s courage, action, and unwavering com-mitment.
Wars and displacements ripple across borders, disrupt economies, endanger food security, and shatter human lives, the chief adviser said.
He said: “In the face of these interconnected crises, old solutions are inadequate. What we need urgently is renewed multilateral diplomacy, deeper international cooperation, and collective commitment to sus-tainable development.”
He said many countries, including Bangladesh, are preparing to graduate from LDC status amid severe challenges.
For Bangladesh, Prof Yunus said this includes hosting 1.3 million forcibly displaced Rohingyas, manag-ing repeated climate shocks, and navigating global economic turbulence.
In such a context, reducing UN budgets or shrinking official development assistance would be counter-productive, he said.
Instead, he said, the world must redouble efforts to expand international support, provide technical assis-tance, and ensure a just transition for nations facing heightened vulnerability.
The chief adviser said the global conflicts do more than immediate harm; they also undermine our shared vision for a sustainable future.
As an advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals, he said he has long believed that these goals cannot be fully realised within the current global system—a system still dominated by the relentless pur-suit of profit over people.
Under these conditions, the path to the SDGs can indeed appear bleak, he said.
“But I am not here to dwell on the gloom. I am here to propose a shift—a transformation of the system itself,” he added.
“We must move toward an economy that places human well-being, social justice and environmental stewardship above the narrow accumulation of wealth. This is not a utopian ideal. It is a necessary evolu-tion,” Prof Yunus said.
He said at the heart of this new economy lies social business since social business is not a niche con-cept—it is a fundamental principle: that business can and must exist to make a difference, not just a profit.
It began humbly, with a one-dollar loan but yesterday it has grown into a global movement, he said.
He also said from healthcare and renewable energy to education and even sports, social businesses are showing that it is possible to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges while remaining economically sustainable.
“They are living proof that another world is within reach—a world where commerce serves humanity, where growth includes everyone and where profit is measured not only in financial returns but in lives improved, communities strengthened and our planet healed,” the chief adviser said.
Noting that the current civilization is on a self-destructive path—one defined by endless extraction, con-sumption and accumulation, he said the people are endangering the very planet that sustains them.
“To change course, we must build a new civilization—one motivated not by greed but by a shared com-mitment to solving human and planetary challenges,” Prof Yunus said.
He said in this new world, wealth must be shared, not concentrated.
“Power held in too few hands weakens the whole of society. And business must be redefined—not as a vehicle for personal profit, but as an engine for social good,” he added.
Prof Yunus said this is the promise of social business and this is how we will truly achieve the Sustaina-ble Development Goals.
But, he said, this new civilization will not be built by the same minds that created the old one.
