Jordanian activists take the lead in promoting SDGs locally

AMMAN — While the international spotlight was turned to New York City a little over a week ago, focusing on global leaders’ speeches at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), Jordanian activists took it upon themselves to promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at their own scale, as part of the Global Goals Week 2018.

Launched in 2016 by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Project Everyone and the UN Foundation, the Global Goals Week is “an annual week of action where the UN and its partners from around the world come together to drive action, raise awareness and hold leaders to account in order to accelerate progress to the SDGs", the Global Goals website read.

“Too many people still don’t know about the importance of SDGs and the impact that they can have in creating a change,” said Aisha Abd Salman, one of the 10 Jordanian SDGs advocates picked by the UN to become the “voice of the SDGs” in the Kingdom.

Selected over a year ago, Abd Salman has grown to become the leader of the SDGs advocates in Jordan, which now count a group of over 100 volunteers scattered around the country. “Through our awareness and training sessions, we have managed to get more than 100 people from various backgrounds, governorates and ages, from under 18 years old to over 35, who are now fully dedicated to promoting the global goals in their communities as well as nationally,” Abd Salman told The Jordan Times in a recent interview in Amman.

Herself deeply committed to promoting inclusion and equality through her involvement with the HeForShe movement, artistic inclusion initiative Waragami and the Youth Ambassadors for Climate Change in Jordan, the 24-year-old believes in the importance of promoting SDGs through community events, which expose concrete examples of the impact of global goals.

Last September, the advocates organised the SDG Talks at Zain Innovation Campus, where various social entrepreneurs from Jordan were invited to speak about their experience in turning their companies or start-ups into entities incorporating a direct SDG-related impact. 

“Zaid Rabab'a, who co-founded the application ‘SanadyMe’ that allows patients and their families to share their experiences to support each others, exposed how his startup supports the SDG 3 Health and Well-being, while Saleem Najjar, a Syrian youth who co-founded ‘Sharqi Shop’ displayed how the online marketplace contributes to SDG8-Decent Work and Economic Growth- by enabling artisans, especially Syrian refugees, to sell their handicrafts,” Abd Salman said.

“If people knew about the 17 global goals and the mechanisms implemented by the UN and our government in this regard, they would definitely be able to influence concrete changes in their community,” the young activist stressed, noting that she constantly tells the people she meets that “their voice matters”.

That is also what Rawan Abu Ein, leader of the SDGs advocates team in Irbid, believes. She told The Jordan Times over the phone that her experience trying to inform the people in her city has been new and “truly unique”. 

“After I learned about the global goals, I became responsible for raising awareness around me. Because I sincerely believe that every person in this world can help to preserve environmental resources, and that's what people have to know,” Abu Ein highlighted.

One of the main actions implemented during this year’s Global Week consisted in spreading the word about “My World 2030 Survey”, a questionnaire launched by the UN to learn more about people’s issues and priorities regarding SDGs.

“We try to make people understand that, by filling the survey, they can help their policymakers to know more about their needs and concerns,” Abd Salman explained, noting that the final answers will feed both into the UN’smonitoring of the SDG progress and into the Jordanian government’s local approach towards these goals.

“According to statistics and the surveys we already collected, education seems to be the Jordanians’ number one priority in terms of global goals, which means that we could be able to give our government a push to focus on this area,” Abd Salam pointed out.

Through the months of October and November, the Jordanian advocates will keep conducting awareness raising sessions in various locations across the Kingdom, starting with a session in Aisha Bent Abi Bakr School in Amman.

“At this phase, we are still focusing on the global goals in general but we are planning to later narrow our campaigns down to the most pressing SDGs for Jordanians, as per the results of the survey,” she concluded.

Adopted by world leaders in September 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aims to end all forms of poverty, inequalities and environmental degradation, while ensuring that no one is left behind, according to the UN website. 

“The SDGs present both a bold vision for a better future and a challenge for collective action to achieve the goals. Global Goals Week is a response to that challenge — creating opportunities for partners from many different areas to work together to drive change,” Kathy Calvin, president and CEO of the UN foundation, was quoted in the website as saying.