26 February 2018 – The SDG Dashboard has been announced today as a finalist of the United Nations SDG Action Awards in the ‘visualizer’ category. The Awards recognise the most outstanding and innovative efforts to inspire action on the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of goals adopted by countries to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda.
The Awards are powered by the United Nations SDG Action Campaign. Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on 21 March 2018, during the second edition of the Global Festival of Action for Sustainable Development, the world’s annual gathering to catalyse action for the SDGs, happening in Bonn, Germany (21-23 March 2018).
The SDG Solution developed by SocialCops in collaboration with the UN RCO office in India uses proprietary technology to generate and aggregate real-time data, then analyse and visualise a complete data-driven picture for every one of the 17 SDGs. With a data-driven approach to measuring progress towards Agenda 2030, their solution helps governments, nonprofits and foundations bring together data from anywhere – from web services and APIs to inaccessible PDF tables and primary surveys. By conquering problematic data and data sources, top decision-makers can finally consolidate their efforts across different sectors, measure their impact, find better solutions, and accelerate development.
The SocialCops-UN in India SDG solution empowers decision-makers across different levels of the development sphere to make better, more data-driven decisions to accelerate the SDGs through their organisation’s work. The solution is currently being implemented in three different contexts: at a national level in India with data from the government’s social welfare initiatives; across the private sector by the Business Council of Papua New Guinea to track the impact of corporate giving and throughout the state of Maharashtra’s gram panchayats (GPs, or self-governing village councils) to develop digital GP Development Plans and streamline participatory planning.
“The challenges we are facing are huge, but through this first edition we have we seen once again, that there are many people, businesses, organisations and governments creating positive change and having an outstanding impact in their communities”, says Mitchell Toomey, Global Director of the UN SDG Action Campaign.
“We need to showcase and celebrate these bold and creative change-makers, learn from them and connect them to ensure they can scale and inspire others. In this first year of the UN SDG Action Awards, we have had outstanding competition and all should be immensely proud of what they have achieved”, added Toomey.
The Awards draw attention to the need to learn from change-makers from across the globe and celebrate the most impactful and innovative achievements contributing to the global sustainable development movement.
The first edition received over 740 nominations from 7 continents and 125 countries, ranging from Zambia to India, from Benin to Norway, from civil society and grassroots initiatives to public sector and municipal government projects, as well as private sector engagements. Finalists are being carefully reviewed by 12 prominent figures within the global SDG community.
The Awards recognise initiatives in seven categories: mobilizer, includer, communicator, visualizer, innovator, storyteller and connector.
The solution is still under implementation in India and Papua New Guinea, but the governments and United Nations have envisioned it as a North Star to guide and target all development programs and activities. Once the solution is complete, each country will be able to track every aspect of its progress toward achieving the SDGs, identify what is hindering its progress in real time, and align all development programs — at the central or state level, implemented by governments or NGOs — to focus on the indicators, sectors and geographies that will maximise progress toward Agenda 2030.
Watch a demo of the SDGs dashboard here.
ABOUT THE GLOBAL FESTIVAL OF ACTION
The Global Festival of Action for Sustainable Development is the world´s annual event to celebrate, empower, and connect the global community driving Action for the Sustainable Development Goals.
Organised by the UN SDG Action Campaign with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Festival connects an inspiring mix of business leaders, activists, UN representatives, academia, governments, innovators, global organisations, and the media from across the globe. Taking place in Bonn each year, the Festival provides a dynamic and interactive space to showcase the latest innovations, tools and approaches to SDG action and connect organisations and individuals from different sectors and regions to exchange, build partnerships, and make the impact of their solutions scale.
For more information, please visit the page of the festival and the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. The official hashtag for the event is #SDGglobalfest. The hashtag for the UN SDG Action Awards is #SDGawards.
ABOUT THE UN SDG ACTION CAMPAIGN
The UN SDG Action Campaign is a special initiative of the UN-Secretary General, administered by UNDP to create awareness about the 2030 Agenda, empower and inspire people across the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while generating political will and to help make the Goals attainable by 2030. For more information, please visit here.