How can you contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals? Don’t look here.

I was disappointed with “Transforming Our World: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals”, a short course by the SDG Academy, hosted on EdX and delivered by Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

Takeaways:

• Prof Sachs is evangelical, with good reason, about the potential of the SDGs and in highlighting examples of business interventions and technologies that can get us there.
• I hoped that Prof Sachs would explain frankly where we are now on the SDGs and how — or when - we can realistically get on track. I wanted to understand the points of greatest leverage so I could consider how to contribute through my future work.
• But this course is so out of date, it’s almost unhelpful: it does provide an overview of the SDGs, as promised, but focuses on how things ‘should happen’, not on addressing today’s barriers to achieving the SDGs — I wanted to hear about financing challenges, how to overcome vested corporate interests, what might allow for equitable diffusion of technologies, etc.

I found some answers in the UN’s 2020 report on the SDGs.

• The SDGs are not at all on track. This infographic fails to find much to celebrate on any of the goals.
• And covid-19 has slowed progress on all fronts.

Big problems. But that doesn’t need to be a deterrent; it should spur on the global innovation community (you, us) to apply ourselves even more to finding solutions. Just don’t look to this course for the answer.

Notes to self: How can you spot whether an online course is still current? No reviews are displayed and the course material is not dated. Could maybe enrol for free then check recent discussion-forum activity. Also need to be more careful about aligning my learning objectives with what the course offers.