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“Using the SDGs for Government Action”: A New Course by the SDG Academy and Apolitical

By Maelle Voil

The SDG Academy and Apolitical team up to create a new free course exclusive to public servants & policymakers.

Sustainable development is the most urgent challenge of our time. The current global economy produces enormous wealth, but it also creates tremendous inequality, social exclusion, and environmental destruction. The 2030 Agenda, unanimously adopted by UN Member States in 2015, provides guidance for addressing these global challenges. However the success of this Agenda and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals largely depends on good public governance.

In today’s global landscape, governments face increasingly complex economic, social and environmental challenges. We must be better at protecting the natural foundations of life and our planet everywhere and for everyone, and preserving people's opportunities to live in dignity and prosperity across generations. A critical step towards change and reaching the ambition embodied in the SDGs is to build and nurture SDG capacity and knowledge for public servants.

To address this, the SDG Academy, SDSN’s flagship education initiative, teamed up with Apolitical to create a new short training course. Starting on 4 October, this free course will lay out the concept of sustainable development and the framework of the SDGs for government action. Accessible to public servants and policymakers, the course will introduce useful tools and resources and bring the learners to consider their role in achieving the SDGs locally and globally. It features lectures by SDSN President Professor Jeffrey Sachs and experts from the SDSN Secretariat.

The free course will be presented in 4 lessons:

  • Lesson 1: Introducing sustainable development
  • Lesson 2: SDG data and data-based decision-making
  • Lesson 3: Understanding international spillovers
  • Lesson 4: How to achieve the SDGs

By the end of the course, learners will be able to:

  • Understand what sustainable development is, and why it is important.
  • Describe the role of data in SDG decision-making.
  • Understand international spillovers as a consequence of local decisions.
  • Apply backcasting as a planning tool to achieve the SDGs.

For more details on the course and how to register, visit this page.