The Sustainable Development Goals e-Inventory is an interactive online tool aiming to crowdsource proposals on global goals for the post-2015 period.
The e-Inventory provides all stakeholders with a platform to outline and disseminate their research on and recommendations for global goals. This information can then be used to inform the intergovernmental process on sustainable development goals (SDGs).
It will also help stakeholders (including governments and intergovernmental organisations) become better informed about the wide range of proposals, expectations and evidence-based arguments on SDGs and other global goals for development being proposed as part of the post-2015 development framework.
Overall, it is hoped that resource will improve the likelihood of achieving an SDGs framework which fully integrates the three dimensions of sustainable development (social, environmental and economic).
Method
To achieve these objectives, the e-Inventory will:
- Enable stakeholders to outline their vision for post-2015 global goals. This may be in the form of fully formed proposals, which include detailed targets and indicators, or simply principles and themes that should be applied to the goals;
- Allow stakeholders to update their submissions and provide feedback/comment on other proposals as the discussions on the Post 2015 Development Agenda and the SDGs develop;
- Provide capacity building resources to help stakeholders fill knowledge gaps around the intergovernmental process, develop their own proposals, build alliances, and develop advocacy strategies; and
- Provide stakeholders with the data to undertake analysis to identify trends, commonalities and knowledge/evidence gaps. Stakeholder Forum will also use this information to conduct and disseminate regular analysis to inform the intergovernmental process on SDGs. This dissemination will take place via the stakeholder engagement channels established by Rio+20 mandated Open Working Group.
Background
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have shown that setting time-bound targets can be an effective mechanism for creating political, public and private support for international development efforts. Building upon the strengths and weakness of the MDGs, the international community is now focused on developing a successor framework for the ‘post-2015’ period.
Central to this agenda was the agreement to launch a process to develop a set of universal sustainable development goals (SDGs) made at the 2012 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as Rio+20 or Earth Summit 2012. Member States committed to launch an ‘inclusive and transparent intergovernmental process on sustainable development goals that is open to all stakeholders’ (para 248).
This process will run parallel to discussions on the Post 2015 Development Agenda, an initiative of the UN Secretary General, currently undertaking a series of consultations and assessing the options for the successor framework of the MDGs. Whilst it is currently unclear about exactly how the SDG process will fit into the Post 2015 programme, there is broad agreement that there must be close linkages between the two processes and agenda.
With intergovernmental process on SDGs now underway, there are currently multiple recommendations for the principles that should underpin the framework, the thematic areas that the goals should cover, as well as the specific targets and indicators that would accompany them. Nonetheless, information on these proposals remains widely dispersed, therefore making it difficult for all stakeholders (including governments) to access, evaluate and come to an informed decision about which of these approaches will be the most effective for the delivery of sustainable development post-2015.
For more info see their website
