Sustainable Development Goals



The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are considered in the context of learning resources and capacity building. SDGs are officially known as Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a set of 17 "Global Goals" with 169 targets between them.

Wikiversity is an Open Educational Resource and therefore the capacity building and learning is addressed by this module about SDGs. With /SDG-Tagging/ other learning resources can be labelled with SDGs within Wikiversity, if the learning objectives match with one or more SDGs.

SDG concept was spearheaded by the United Nations through a deliberative process involving its 193 Member States, as well as global civil society, the goals are contained in paragraph 54 United Nations Resolution A/RES/70/1 of 25 September 2015. The Resolution is a broader intergovernmental agreement that acts as the Post 2015 Development Agenda (successor to the Millennium Development Goals). The SDGs build on the Principles agreed upon under Resolution A/RES/66/288, popularly known as The Future We Want. It is a non-binding document released as a result of Rio+20 Conference held in 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil.

The SDGs were in large measure informed by the perspective reflected in the often quoted assertion by Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General from 2007 to 2016, that
 * "we don’t have plan B because there is no planet B".

Risk Literacy and capacity building is key to support sustainable decision making.

On 19 July 2014, the UN General Assembly's Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) forwarded a proposal for the SDGs to the Assembly. The proposal contained 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of sustainable development issues. These included ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests. On 5 December 2014, the UN General Assembly accepted the Secretary-General's Synthesis Report which stated that the agenda for the post-2015 SDG process would be based on the OWG proposals.

The Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Post 2015 Development Agenda (IGN) began in January 2015 and ended in August 2015. Following the negotiations, a final document was adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit September 25–27, 2015 in New York, USA. The title of the agenda is Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

University Certificates with SDG Assignment
Assuming a student has finished some courses in Biology, Environmental Sciences, Architecture, Teacher Education, ...
 * (Assign SDGs to Courses) after finishing the University with a degree, universities may decide to issue additionally SDG certificate mentions for all the courses, that contribute to a specific SDGs and the results of course are enablers for the implementation of sustainable management. This can be provided as a diploma supplement on paper or in a digital form as Open Badge.
 * (Open Badges for SDGs) Identify the benefit and challenges of Open Badges Management for issuing an additional SDG certificate with metadata as Open Badges for single SDGs in addition to a diploma supplement.

Lesson Learned from Millenium Development Goals

 * High focus on development, but sustainability is underrepresented in MDG
 * Elaborate the performance indicators to measure the impact of activities must be improved.

Learning Resources

 * /Spatial Mapping/ of SDG Activities
 * /Open SDG Course/
 * Global Mountain Sustainability
 * /SDG-Tagging/
 * /Developing Countries/

Learning Tasks

 * (/SDG-Tagging/) Explore the concept of /SDG-Tagging/ for Wikiversity Learning Resources!
 * (Targets and Indicator) If goals are defined, the acoomplishment of targets had to be validated/assessed and indicators had to be defined. Analyse the SDG targets and SDG indicators that were defined on August 2015 by 169 proposed targets for these goals and 304 proposed indicators to show compliance. . Before looking at published targets and indicators try to derive for yourself, how you would assess your activities and if your activities contributed to sustainability.
 * (Implementation: personal view) Are there any activities in your professional private, that related to one or more SDGs at you work. Are there any options to contribute on that. Can you describe obstacles of implementing activities.
 * (Implementation: organisational view) Because the concept is a global approach is it necessary of focus on implementation of the SDGs via universities, governments, organisations and citizens work on several topics at the same time everywhere. In each country, governments must translate the goals into national legislation, develop a plan of action, allocate a budget, be open and search for partners. Developing countries need the support of rich countries, and coordination at the international level is crucial.
 * (Communicating the Goals) The comprehesivness of SDGs is the foundation that understanding of the concept could lead into action (see Jakob Trollbäck, icons were developed for every goal, the title was shortened to its essence from "The 17 Sustainable Development Goals" to "Global Goals", dedicated workshops and conferences developed on the topic of communicating the #GlobalGoals - s.a. the Global Festival of Ideas for Sustainable Development at the UNO headquarters in Bonn in march 2017; the endeavour was opened up so everybody could participate, etc.). How can you contribute in your company, academic institute, ... user-driven innovation.
 * (Short-term/long-term goals) growing inequality and increasingly challenges to get basic resources for the every day life challenges communities and occupies their capacity . It is working against sustainable thinking because primary needs had to be fulfilled first. Explore
 * (Systems Thinking) For dealing with the complexity and often interlinking of the goals with each other, several techniques and methodologies are used, e.g. at the Global Festival of Ideas for Sustainable Development at the UNO headquarters in Bonn in march 2017, the 2030 Hive Mind game was used: "The SDGs are highly interdependent – objectives overlap; policies compete and complement; countries have to set priorities, sequence their efforts and manage trade-offs. The game simulates some of these complexities to spark inventive solutions and build alliances. This was not a modelling exercise, although the game was built on empirical evidence. Nor was it prescriptive. The game was designed to help people, regardless of their backgrounds, engage in a complex decision-making process.​".
 * (Project Analysis) Explore the Project Children Project in India. Assign Sustainable Development Goals to the project! What are the key features for getting closer to sustainability and what are possibilities reaching people that are not reached with necessary sustainable services.
 * (User-Driven Innovation) Wikiversity is a learning environment and provides the possiblity to share and build on knowledge. Share your humanitarian ideas for projects and document your "lessons learnt" on project subpage for SDGs. Make cross-reference to other project with similar approaches.
 * (Scientific Hackathon) Explore the concept of Scientific Hackathon for global challenges of sustainability. Select a specific challenges and select a target modelling environment as decision support system.
 * (Earth Obveration for Sustainable Development) Analyse the approaches utilizing Earth Observation to monitor
 * erosion at costline, loss of land, salination of soil due to rising level,
 * soil moisture,
 * earth near temperature,
 * soil moisture.
 * disaster management e.g. floodings, fires, ...
 * Detect algae bloom with EO e.g. Red Tide (Harmful Algae Bloom – HAB) caused by algae, “Karenia brevis” in costal region wind and current aggregates algae. With One Health Risk in the area of respiratory irritation (airbourne toxin), skin irritation (exposure) and environmental impacts that make shellfish poissonous or kills fish, dolphins, ...