American University of Sharjah will hold a special, one-day workshop on February 15 entitled The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Their Implementation with Reference to the Gulf. The workshop will address the main challenges of the SDGs, with a particular focus on how to reconcile the objectives of the socio-economic and ecological SDG goals as well as on how to develop integrated policy frameworks for the attainment of the SDGs.

It will cover a wide range of topics:

• UN SDGs - An Integrated Approach: A general discussion regarding the tensions between the individual goals and the need for more integration as well as the realization that several of them will be difficult to achieve as they conflict with each other. 
• Climate Change: Which are the current trends and how will different countries and regions meet the Paris Goals?
• The Resource Efficiency Revolution: How to use energy and materials more intelligently?
• The Oceans: Governance and management of the high seas are basically non-existent and problems related to human activities are mounting. How can we manage the oceans? 
• Biodiversity: The least understood of the SDG goals. How do we make the importance of biodiversity understandable in tomorrow's world?
• The Social Challenges: We face enormous challenges in an interconnected world. How do we tackle some key issues such as income distribution, migration and employment?

The workshop will be conducted by Anders Wijkman and Dr. Olof Linden, two internationally renowned experts in the field.

Anders Wijkman is an opinion maker and an author. He is the Co-President of the Club of Rome, Chairman of the Swedish Association of Recycling Industries, and a member of the Board of the Swedish Development Authority (SIDA). He has served as a Member of the European Parliament, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and Policy Director of UNDP. His most recent book Bankrupting Nature, was published by Routledge in 2012.

Dr. Olof Linden is Professor of Marine Environment Management and Director of Research at the World Maritime University (WMU). He holds a Nippon Foundation Chair at WMU. He is also Professor of Coastal Management at Linnaeus University in Sweden.