Our core goal is INTEGRATION !
The converging crises of our time all arise from a common root that we might call Separation.
Charles Eisenstein – Sacred Economics
In 2015 all United Nations member states adopted the SDGs as a unified strategy to address issues of social, economic, and environmental justice.The SDGs were developed to recognizing that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic prosperity and address a range of social needs including education, health, equality and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and working to preserve our ocean and forests.
These goals and metrics are developed to build a common vision and related actions across communities and governments around the world.
Our task is to examine the 17 goals, 169 targeted outcomes, and 232 measurable indicators created by the United Nations, and translate them where possible in ways that are meaningful at the local level. It is intended that this work would provide a framework for common measurement across community organizations and social service agencies to assess outcomes and join in the greater movement to address these issues.
Tracking what matters
Our dashboard provides an analysis of local relevant metrics using both quantitative and qualitative data, including examples of local challenges and initiatives. Plus, a library of the resources that shaped and inspired our work, including local community documents, international reports and analyses about the SDGs.
SDG Ecosystem
An overview of the local and external agents who are involved with the SDG framework and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. In a network, we have a set of elements (people or organizations) that are connected and work with each other while still being perceived as separate and independent entities. In an ecosystem, each and every element is interdependent and the balance of the system is determined by the relationships among them.
We are, de facto, part of an ecosystem, whether we realized it or not. Models like Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics provide a robust description of this worldview.
In London, Ontario we have an incredible number of people and organizations tackling issues in all the seventeen sustainable development goals. The SDG framework provides an excellent opportunity for collaboration and we want to promote the growing number of local champions and initiatives investing in raising awareness about the SDGs and creating an intentional ecosystem.
… if the SDGs are really going to shift our whole system onto a sustainable path, we need serious amounts of joined-up thinking that goes deeper to address underlying causes. Successfully delivering the SDGs requires a really strong systems approach. For organisations rising to the challenge, that means operating on three levels – [1] joining up with others’ efforts to achieve individual goals; [2] looking at the inter-relationships between all the goals; and finally [3] delivering the goals in a way that models the characteristics we need for a sustainable society.
Local Indicator Set
We want to ensure that our metrics address the relevant issues in London Ontario. Early on our research, we learned that we would be able to apply only a fraction of the global indicators. A report published in 2017 by the Brookings Institute analyzing all the 169 targets, identified only:
… 78 SDG targets that are outcome-focused, relevant to high-income countries, and quantitatively assessable.
Who and what gets left behind – Brookings
Even among those, only 61 targets (containing 73 underlying indicators) could be assessed due to data availability. That represents only 36% of targets and 30% of the indicators. This is a consistent finding compared to other studies in North America and Europe:
Localizing SDGs is not the parachuting of global goals into local context but linking local and regional government’s agendas with the global goals and empowering sub-national governments.
Emilia Saiz, Secretary General Of United Cities And Local Governments
London-Middlesex Community Goals 