University Externado di Colombia held a day long public event on "social business for building a more equitable world" on its campus on the occasion of Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus visit to the country.

The 140-year-old university with 14,000 students has a joint programme with Yunus Centre and has established Yunus Social Business Centre in 2019.

The main event of the day was a dialogue between Prof Yunus and former president of Colombia Nobel Laureate Juan Manuel Santos on "social business as an engine for reducing poverty and building peace", according to a press release issued on November 12.

Yunus called for an immediate stop of the Ukraine war. This, he said, should be the only agendum for the COP 27. The world is forced to protect itself from immediate catastrophe from the war rather than pay attention to more serious crisis of climate emergency.

This war is already a "World War" -- a war against the present and future of human beings on this planet. It is a war against whole humanity, not just one country.

The world has no option to think about long term future. Every single country is forced to divert its resources to address the heavy impact of this war on people, food supply and economy. No person or no country is spared from the impact of this war. It has forced COP goals off the radar of policy makers.

 Professor Yunus elaborated on how a world of three zeros -- zero net carbon emissions, zero wealth concentration to end poverty and zero unemployment by unleashing entrepreneurship in all - especially through the mobilization of the young people, can be made possible.

 President Santos agreed that youth were the key drivers for the creation of such a world and that he supported through his foundation youth initiatives to create social businesses including in the Amazon forest with the Yunus Environment Hub, an organization dedicated to social business in environment and circularity.

The nearly hour-long conversation highlighted issues of poverty reduction, youth entrepreneurship and social business, the climate challenge, immediate ending of Ukrainian war and building peace as a prerequisite to creating a more equitable world.