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October 19, 2017
Creative Industries Can Create Positive Change



SDG Fund is Partnering with Artists, Chefs and Architects to Tackle Global Challenges

Annefleur Bruin is a 17-year-old high school student in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. She is also a singer and a songwriter who felt compelled to do what she could to raise awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the issue of hunger.

“I am not a fighter, I am not a president or a leader of anything, I'm not even very brave,” she says. “But I can still help by increasing awareness around this problem, and by motivating more people to help combat and resolve it. Structural hunger is not necessary in a world with enough food. It is an outcome of wars, economics, nature and the way the world is organized.”

So Bruin did what she knows best — she wrote songs. She entitled one “No to Hunger” and says she plans to keep writing — and singing — about this issue.


Structural hunger is not necessary in a world with enough food. It is an outcome of wars, economics, nature and the way the world is organized.

Annefleur Bruin

The connection between music and SDGs may not be an obvious one to everyone, but the Sustainable Development Goals Fund (SDG Fund) is working closely with creative artists across many industries to bring attention to some of the world’s biggest challenges, including hunger, poverty, and climate change.

Cultural and creative industries create more than 29 million jobs globally, and play a key role in improving people’s livelihoods and boosting economies. By incorporating people-centered values and prioritizing sustainability, these sectors can help propel the 17 SDGs and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The SDG Fund is collaborating with representatives from music, architecture, food and education industries to address many pressing global issues. For example, we have partnered with the Roca chef brothers to inform the food industry and the public about sustainable cooking, nutrition, food security and the need to eliminate food waste. In the architecture field, we are promoting the winners of the Pritzker Prize – the “Nobel of Architecture” – in order to highlight how the sector can serve the less privileged, mitigate the effects of disasters and reduce energy consumption. And we have partnered with the Berklee College of Music to promote diversity and gender equality in the music industry.

These are just some examples of our collaboration with the creative sectors. But as Bruin’s work illustrates, everyone can find a way to get involved.

“When you ask me why I wrote this song, it's not because I just woke up some day and music and lyrics came to me,” she says. “It was a choice that I made to sit down and think about how maybe somehow, in a big or small manner, I can help. And so can you.