ScopeNI – Making the Global Goals relevant for citizens
Written by Ryan Miller for ScopeNI
Scope talks with the Northern Ireland Environment Link about their plans to improve awareness and understanding of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Some of the major issues in the world would best be tackled by unity across national borders.
When some of the truly global institutions set targets for social, economic and/or environmental improvement, often they sound truly impressive and aspirational.
But how well do these messages translate to the needs of local communities? Sometimes the accusation is that your average person feels at a great distance from socio-political monoliths, but are most people even aware enough of their work to feel disengaged?
Even for people who work in the third sector, these initiatives can feel irrelevant. But that can change.
In September 2015, the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which together comprise its high-level strategy for helping societies across the globe until 2030. The SDGs are the successor to the Millennium Development Goals that covered the period 2000-2015.
The SDGs include an exhaustive list of headings for social aspiration. This means they are relevant to, in some way or another, to any aspect of community development (including anything that a third sector organisation would ever consider its mission).
But to match these ideas to the specific demands and solutions within individual communities requires work. And that is something the Northern Ireland Environment Link (NIEL) is aiming to do.