In 2015 the United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. These include ending poverty, empowering women, providing universal education, sustaining the environment, and several more. The 17th goal concerns partnerships: how people can work together to achieve the goals’ objectives. The best exemplars of successful partnerships are families that have established businesses, small and large.

The SDGs have received a bit of a boost from this year’s commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which states in Article 16 that “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society…” While the UN gave it short shrift in the SDGs, the family is not only the “fundamental group unit of society” but also the main economic force for global development. As the data show, family-founded businesses are the biggest drivers of economic growth, employment, women’s empowerment, and poverty eradication worldwide. It’s time the UN paid attention.

Individuals or couples with an idea for a new or improved product or service start a business; after watching it grow and prosper, they will then ask other family members—siblings or children—to join them in running it. Children who assist in a family business learn responsibility, and how to manage resources, money, and risk. Women founders or co-partners are empowered via ownership, management, and decision-making. The second generation often takes a successful company to the next level, even growing the family business into a global enterprise.

Many businesses are started by women. In New York City a weekly TV program entitled Her Big Idea profiles women who have started successful businesses in the city, one of the most competitive economic environments in the world. Some began on their own, others in partnership with her husband or sibling. The types of businesses range widely: from a couple who created some of the first computer games to Melissa’s cupcakes, which has become a national brand known as “Baked by Melissa.”

According to a 2023 international study by the consulting firm McKinsey, family-owned businesses account for 70 percent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), provide 60 percent of global employment, and have annual revenues of $60 to $70 trillion. The ability to be adaptable and resilient underlies their success. (N.B.: Global GDP in 2023 was $105 trillion, as per the International Monetary Fund.)

Every two years another consulting firm, Ernst & Young, in partnership with the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, publishes the Family Business Index, which identifies the top 500 family-owned or controlled businesses worldwide. The last issue, also covering 2023, showed that these companies’ revenues had grown 10 percent to $8 trillion, higher than the 6 percent growth in global GDP for that year—and a figure that would make “Family Business” the third largest country in the world after the United States and China.

Interestingly, family businesses endure: 76 percent of those in the Family Business Index have been operational for over 50 years. One-third are at least a century old. Numerically, about half (46 percent) are based in Europe. By country, 118 were headquartered in the United States and 78 in Germany. In these 500 companies, women occupied 23 percent of board seats.

In terms of revenue, the three most successful family businesses globally in 2023 were Walmart, founded in 1962 by the Walton family and now employing over 2.3 million persons world-wide; Berkshire Hathaway, owned by Warren Buffett; and Cargill, the agricultural behemoth founded as far back as 1875.

The importance of family businesses cannot be underestimated. As data indicate, they play a key role in local, regional, national, and global economies. What better and more effective partnership (SDG 17) is there than starting a family business and watching it grow and create prosperity. The UN should take note—by recognizing the important economic contributions of these companies, and by encouraging family-business-friendly policies.

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—Vincenzina Santoro is an international economist. She represents the American Family Advocates at the United Nations.