Right now, New York is the epicenter of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.  The Global Goals are everywhere, billboards, stickers, buttons and t-shirts; the 17 SDGs are splashed across everything and everyone. Social media is awash with photos of events around the Goals, selfies highlighting your favorite Goal, and even candy with the Goals emblazoned on them (I myself am guilty of posting the latter).  Selfies aside, trending topics don’t last forever.

What happens next month when the number of posts and hashtags dwindle?

Sustainable Development Goals, in order to live up to their name they have to last, remain popular and command our attention and actions for the next fourteen years. Can this be done? Anne Mei Chang from USAID said it quite simply, “a good solution is not enough, people need to understand it, and want it”.

On the final day of the Social Good Summit the big takeaways for me are the importance and need for data and making smart business decisions to drive change.  I first heard the term Data Revolution in 2012, and it is clear that more information is critical and leads to more informed policy spending and greater results but it is not easy to achieve.  U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke about the Cancer Moonshot and the challenges in aggregating cancer data in the US and how data has the potential to transform treatment in the future.  Data collection and analysis takes time to develop both in terms of the metrics and the capacity, however the UN and the international community are trying to jumpstart this process for the Global Goals.  The UN Statistical Commission has agreed to 230 indicators for the 17 Goals, which is the first step in tracking progress.  After the Global Goals were adopted the next big question was how to track and monitor implementation.  Never before has so much attention been paid to the work of national statisticians.  Never before had so many diplomats attended a statistics meeting, to the point where there were no more seats left in the conference hall and a second overflow room had to be used.  Statistics are sexy.

Statistics will assist the private sector in making smart sustainable investments.  Nike demonstrated this perfectly, showing a video about the importance of outdoor play for children’s development and health, but a video the company made four years ago.  Nike has made investments in children’s health around the world, because while of course it’s important for children to be active and healthy, but it’s also good business for those children to be active and need sneakers.  Nike’s philanthropic efforts started long before the Global Goals came about but they will also contribute towards achieving Goals 3 and 4.  In the same vein that aquaculture is becoming more popular as a sustainable way to source seafood.  Educated consumers want sustainable sourced food and our oceans ands marine ecosystems need a better solution.

Aaron Sherinian of the UN Foundation moderated a panel discussing how the media has to solve and sell.  The media will have some responsibility to keep the publics attention on the SDGs for the next fourteen years.  While governments are recalibrating and setting up the necessary systems to implement and track progress on the Goals, it will be up to the media and the public to decide if they are doing enough.  Social media and tools like the People’s Report Card will help send that message, so far the world is looking at C+ for 2016, we will all have to do better than that to transform our world by 2030.

Image: Richard Curtis.