“What is your vision for a better world?” asks the inaugural Director of Local Futures, Jon Beale. Giving the audience a moment to reflect, he introduced the vision for the latest initiative in the Grebel Peace Incubator, Local Futures. “This is essentially what the Sustainable Development Goals are, the world coming together to think about our ambition for what a better world could look like.” The SDGs aim to guide global action on economic, social, and environmental challenges that affect us all.
Local Futures: Communities Collaborating for the Sustainable Development Goals, officially launched its project on March 5th, the first week of SDG month in Canada. The project, funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Sustainable Development Goals Funding Program, will bring universities, municipalities, and community organizations together to work collectively on the Sustainable Development Goals and create a more sustainable future.
At the launch event, Jon emphasized that the international focus of the SDGs can make them difficult to achieve. The timeline set to achieve these goals is 2030, and no countries are currently on track to achieving them. For the 17 SDGs to be successful, the framework of indicators to track progress over time—and the activities themselves--must be localized. By aligning the international agenda with the local goals, a more coordinated approach can be taken to achieve the SDGs.
This is precisely what the Local Futures project aims to build. Their work will focus on the creation of municipal reporting on the SDGs, facilitate a collective impact model among community actors, develop context-specific indicators and data points to measure change, and motivate a new wave of SDG localization across the country. In short, the three pillars of this project are: assessing progress and future planning, collective impact, and data localization.
The launch event was comprised of three other guest speakers who will be supporting this initiative with their respective roles and expertise. Sitting on the far right is Julie Wright, Ward 7 Councilor for the City of Waterloo and National Director for Our Living Waters. Next to her is Randy Sa’d, Executive Director for REFOCUS. Completing the panel is Lisa Attygalle, Consulting Director of Community Engagement for Tamarack Institute. With Jon moderating, valuable questions and answers about the SDGs, localizing them, and the overall project were discussed.
Julie Wright pointed out that people often focus on federal policies, forgetting the direct impact that occurs in cities derived at the local level. For instance, the City of Waterloo’s new affordable housing project is largely motivated by local organizations, showing that local problems can be solved if the city collectively collaborates.
Bouncing from that point, Lisa reminded the audience that formal institutions are not the only effective key players in solving problems. Grassroot organizations are equally as important, sometimes even more than formal institutions. Tamarack’s resources like their Collective Impact Toolkit will be beneficial for the Local Futures project as they navigate working with formal and grassroot organizations. By working with various stakeholders, progression towards reaching the SDGs will be facilitated according to the needs of the community.
The needs of the community and sustainability issues are linked closely. As Randy emphasized, sustainability issues occur where human activity is pushing up against the natural world’s available resources and ability to regenerate. For example, water sustainability, SDG 6, is not a major concern in the Region of Waterloo because it is sourced from the Grand River and groundwater wells. Similarly, most cities in Ontario and Canada have access to a large source of water.
With the launch of Local Futures, sustainability issues will be distinctly addressed based on the needs of communities, maintaining a focus on the concerns that need attention. For the complete overview of the afternoon’s discussion, view here.
Jon Beale, alongside Program Coordinator, Laura Carr-Pries, are proud to drive this project forward, and hope to enlighten others of the work they are doing. Their work will be shared through a variety of public events and resources, including an annual SDGs Localization Symposium to spotlight localization efforts from other communities in the country.
Learn more about their objectives on their website or follow their LinkedIn to stay updated.
