With progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) flailing, with only 17% on track to potentially be met by 2030, a recent initiative for universities to spearhead sustainable transformations is gaining traction.
The Leaders in Higher Education Alliance and Programme – For Accelerating Sustainability Transformations (LEAP-FAST) initiative was announced at the 2024 UN Summit of the Future. It has backing from UN agencies UNESCO and UNITAR, the government of Saudi Arabia, and the CIFAL Global Network (of international training centres for authorities and leaders).
It has since made significant headway.
Dr Aiman Albarakati, CIFAL’s Saudi director and a computer scientist at Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia, told University World News: “With less than five years to achieve the SDGs targets, we believe universities should be the driver for communities, societies, and countries to play a greater role in accelerating progress… to have a deep systematic transformation in academic and community life that goes far beyond green campuses and tweets.
“It is about reimagining higher education for the 21st century and helping universities transition from isolated sustainability efforts to global collaboration. It aims to set a global standard for what global education can and should be in the service of the SDGs,” said Albarakati.
To have the most impact, the initiative is aimed at equipping faculty and leaders with sustainability competencies in multiple domains. At the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in 2024, higher education leaders issued a joint statement to “act like a bridge for universities to build ethical, forward-looking institutions”, said Albarakati.
At the practical level is a training programme, with the first edition involving a 10-week blended programme of e-learning and a five-day in-person workshop held in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital, in May 2025 and hosted by Majmaah University.
The workshop brought together 56 participants from 15 universities around the world, with discussions on collaboration and strategic foresight and how to develop projects to enable sustainable transformations.
“This programme helped train and equip faculty and academic leaders to embed SDGs in curricula,” said Albarakati. Graduates of the programme received a certificate from UNITAR – the UN Institute for Training and Research – and UNESCO, which allows them to “be like an SDG ambassador”, he said.
LEAP-FAST at HLPF 2025
At the 2025 UN HLPF held in New York, a 23 July side event on “Innovating across higher education space for a more inclusive and sustainable future for all” was held, with participants emphasising the importance of LEAP-FAST.
“The certificate programme draws broadly on the SDG work done by UNESCO, and it meets UNITAR’s objective to help scale up efforts by working with institutions involved with lifelong learning,” said Michelle Gyles-McDonnough, UNITAR’s executive director:
“At the more practical level, LEAP-FAST aims to strengthen faculties to work across disciplines in all educational programmes.”
Christopher Castle, director of the division for peace and sustainable development at UNESCO, told the Wednesday event that LEAP-FAST represents “a bold collaborative step… a new model for universities that are inclusive, grounded, and sustainable”.
Sustainability: More than just a word
The practical importance of the training provided for the LEAP-FAST certificate was brought home by Dr Joyce Govinden Soulange, dean of the faculty of agriculture at the University of Mauritius, who was one of three Mauritian academics at the Riyadh event.
She said on Wednesday: “To me, sustainability was just a word that you say during your programmes and to students in line with the SDGs, food security, and so on. That is what it meant to me.
“But after starting to follow the certificate online and attending the co-creation workshop, I realised our students – this really stayed in my mind – will lead tomorrow and be the decision makers and need awareness about sustainability and competencies.
“I realised what critical thinking and competences were. I realised I had a role to play, and just mentioning sustainability in our programmes and courses was not enough.”
Soulange said that following the workshop, she talked with her university’s administration “to ensure all competencies are developed” as part of the university’s 2024 to 2030 Strategic Plan, which includes sustainability and social responsibility.
Soulange said she wants to establish a sustainability centre for research at the university.
Professor Maina Mwangi, dean of the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at Kenyatta University in Kenya, also participated at the Riyadh workshop with three colleagues.
He said at Wednesday’s event that with Africa’s population slated to double by 2050 and the SDGs not being met, investment was needed in capacity building for African universities to strengthen the focus on sustainability and enable mentorship programmes to enhance inclusivity, particularly for women and those with disabilities.
“We are fortunate to have UNESCO supporting us to embed sustainability in our curriculum. And we are retooling the faculty through the LEAP-FAST programme. We want to establish a sustainability framework and set up a centre as a national or regional hub with UNESCO,” said Mwangi.
“We have an ambition to be leaders in co-creating with communities and everyone we work with. Finally, it is very important that research and innovation is integrated with indigenous knowledge,” he noted.
Mwangi added that “universities need to practice the sustainability that we preach and talk about so everyone can see what is supposed to be implemented. By opening our doors and going out and engaging with communities, we spread our knowledge and enhance sustainability.”
Albarakati said that the benefits of LEAP-FAST were being realised: “It is like a snowball; you start small and get it rolling,” he told University World News.
He said that regional LEAP-FAST initiatives were being mulled, such as for small island states, Africa, and Latin America. “We have had interest from participants to replicate LEAP-FAST in their regions, and we are happy to support that and collaborate,” he said.
In addition to new networks, LEAP-FAST aims to support the initiative in languages other than English, such as Arabic, Spanish, and French: “We have started seeing some of the participants really use what they learnt in the training programme and apply it in their region. With time, we will see more and more of these real, applied cases,” he noted.