Who would have thought that an acorn of an idea many years ago would have led to a presentation to the United Nations and a pledge to create a new kind of philanthropy?
The acorn was the idea of bringing together the highest achievers in the worldwide Khoja community to share experiences and better co-ordinate giving, to both Khoja communities and Humanity at large.
We polished this acorn, nurtured it carefully and helped it grow, until last month it blossomed into the Khoja Business Leaders’ Summit, a landmark event staged in the incredible, inspiring surroundings of Davos in Switzerland.
Now it has solid roots and fast-growing branches. Attendees at the summit – industrialists and thinkers, billionaires and medics – pledged to look at philanthropy in a new way. We signed the Khoja Davos Accord, promising to take concrete actions to make a difference.
We resolved to support one another to increase our collective philanthropic efforts, and identified three priorities: eradicating poverty in the Khoja community through sustainable economic development; education for the underprivileged; and emergency disaster relief.
The creation of a Khoja Wealth Fund is a sustainable way to leverage this potential, and White Papers from each of the three priority groups are due by the end of the year. To raise awareness, we partnered with Global Sustainability Network to adopt United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on increasing economic productivity; ending forced labour, slavery and trafficking; and protection of labour rights.
As a result, the Khoja Davos Accord was presented at the UN by Raza Jafar, the founder of Global Sustainability Network.
The Youtube clip of this extraordinary occasion includes an excerpt from the speech I made as Chairman of the summit: https://youtu.be/8leusguw9ZY
We’ve set the scene for the philanthropy of the future!
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