Communicating the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals to “leave no one behind”
Progress towards the 2030 Agenda, as well as the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been slow. In September 2015, several world leaders adopted a set of Global Goals to eradicate poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all. This year, the pandemic caused great health, social and economic damage, which has delayed the implementation of the Goals. Why has progress been so slow?
ABOUT THE EVENT
Context and Objective
The Communications Coordinator of Cepei, Alexandra Roldán, was invited to participate in the X Congress of International Relations of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina, where she talked about the role of communication in the successful implementation of the SDGs and the challenges that communicators face when generating dissemination and awareness campaigns about the global Agenda.
CEPEI’S CONTRIBUTION
According to Cepei’s Communications Coordinator, comm´s are an essential requirement for sustainable development: “Communications play a fundamental role when it comes to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030, because they have the power to call to action and raise awareness within all actors in society, to formulate policies that “leave no one behind”.
MAIN POINTS OF THE INTERVENTION
As stated by Roldán, those who communicate the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs are called to: Forge partnerships and recognize the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration; Raise awareness and communicate the progress on the implementation of the Goals through clear and accessible messages; Understand individual contexts and realities, avoiding a standard approach to communications; Involve youth; Make effective use of new technologies, such as Tableau, Mapbox, and Esri Story Map; Innovate in the presentation of results, for example, through data stories, infographics, dashboards, dynamic visualizations; And, finally, recognize the formal mandate of the Agenda: “The 2030 Agenda is of the people, by the people, and for the people”.
For Roldán, only when we understand and give priority to the Agenda and the Goals, communicators will be able to create awareness, generate knowledge and inspire people to believe and fight for sustainable development.
When it comes to the use of data stories to communicate the SDGs, our Communications Coordinator states that: “Civil society organizations are called to understand that it is possible to build new worlds through data. But for this it is important for narrative to be anchored in credible evidence, explain how and why responses are working, or not working, make the problems visible and report what is being done to overcome them.
The 2030 Agenda affects everyone in their daily lives, and this is something that we have not yet managed to communicate effectively: There are still challenges to make the SDGs easier for people to understand. It is a fact that this daily exposure to the 2030 Agenda is not happening for most people and stakeholders, which is increasing the disconnection and lack of awareness.
Communications should become a strategic priority in the implementation of the SDGs: The role of communicators is to encourage the incorporation of the Agenda in national and territorial communication strategies, education programs, and non-governmental organizations strategies.
“Communication makes it easier for people to relate to the SDGs. It has the ability to transmit the messages of the Agenda in a simple and clear way, awakening a sense of belonging to it, and calling for action.”