Wednesday 27 March 2013

The SDGs e-Inventory: Stakeholders outline their visions for post-2015 global goals


This ProgBlog article written by Jack Cornforth, Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future, is part of the Wikiprogress Post-2015 series. 


This month Stakeholder Forum has launched a new online tool to crowdsource stakeholder proposals for global goals for the post-2015 period. The Sustainable Development Goals e-Inventory provides all stakeholders with a platform to outline their visions for new universal goals for development, whether they be individuals, organisations or networks, from developed or developing countries, or representatives from NGOs, the private sector, or any other stakeholder group.

With the target date for the Millennium Development Goals fast approaching, attention has turned to what will happen beyond 2015 and several international processes are now working towards determining a new development agenda with new set of global goals. One such process is the negotiation track to create a universal set of sustainable development goals (SDGs), which aims to integrate the development and environment agendas under one framework.

Acting as an online repository, the e-Inventory aims to support stakeholders, including governments and intergovernmental organisations, to become better informed about the wide range of proposals, expectations and evidence-based arguments on SDGs, and other global goals for development, that are being proposed as part of the ongoing discussions on the post-2015 development framework.

Crucially, the SDGs e-Inventory is interactive, allowing stakeholders to submit their own ideas, update their submissions, and provide feedback and comments on other proposals as the discussions on the Post-2015 Development Agenda and the SDGs develop. Stakeholders visiting the site are encouraged to propose specific goals, together with targets and indicators, or they can simply emphasise the principles and themes that they think the new framework should be based upon and address.

The e-Inventory is targeted at sustainable development  practitioners, and aims to provide  users with the resources to develop their thinking, and the space to outline and disseminate their experiences of, research on, and recommendations for, global goals. Accordingly, the SDGs e-Inventory includes a capacity building component (currently being populated) to help stakeholders to fill knowledge gaps around the intergovernmental process, develop their own proposals, build alliances, and develop advocacy strategies.

There are a number of other consultation processes already underway – such as the My World campaign, which is soliciting broad priorities from the general public – which aim to gather stakeholder inputs for post-2015 development agenda. However, the e-Inventory is one of the first projects aiming to source recommendations for global goals directly from stakeholders and to feed into the intergovernmental process on SDGs via the Rio+20 mandated Open Working Group (OWG). Whilst the modalities for the OWG are still being determined, it is ultimately this UN process that will outline an overall vision for SDGs for Members States to consider in the General Assembly.

It is important to emphasise that the SDGs e-Inventory, as a project, is itself not aiming to make prescriptive recommendations for goals based upon the submissions it receives. Rather, it aims to provide an evidence base to support stakeholders and governments to reach well-informed positions on SDGs, and see that the eventual outcome takes stakeholder recommendations into account. As well as encouraging users to utilise the information housed in the e-Inventory to support their own advocacy activities, Stakeholder Forum will also conduct and disseminate regular analysis of the data. 


Reaching a large and diverse cohort of stakeholders, whilst ensuring that the most marginalised sectors of society are not excluded, will be one of the main challenges the project must overcome to be successful. To do so, Stakeholder Forum has partnered on the project with organisations and networks covering all geographical regions. These partners will not only be integral to ensuring the wide dissemination and use of the SDGs e-Inventory, they will also play a key role in seeing that the capacity building resources provided are tailored to the different needs of a wide range of stakeholders; that the information the inventory houses is optimal for advocacy purposes; and that the project receives strategic input from organisations and network with different areas of focus (both environment and development), as well as a full range of regional perspectives.

To further increase accessibility and use by parties around the world, we also plan to translate the user interface – which is currently only available in English – into French and Spanish.

Overall, it is hoped that tool will increase the likelihood of achieving a SDGs framework which fully integrates the three dimensions of sustainable development (social, environmental and economic).

To find out more, search existing proposals, or make your own submission, visit: www.SDGseInventory.org


Jack Cornforth


The OECD Global Forum on Development would like to hear your opinions on the following major themes.

  • Post 2015: Effective partnerships for development in a changing world. Click here to discuss
  • Beyond Poverty reduction: The challenge of social cohesion in developing countries. Click here to discuss
  • Measuring poverty, well-being and progress: Innovative approaches and their implications for statistical capacity development. Click here to discuss
  • The global-national nexus and country-level policy action. Click here to discuss




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