UNESCO
UNESCO
Design and Implementation of an issue-based crowdsourced Global Monitoring Framework for the SDGs
Partner/Client
UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP).
Sector
NGO
Location
Kutch, Gujarat
Key Highlights
1759 Youth participated in the study from 8 educational institutes.
Key issues faced in education included a lack of educational material and books, lack of teachers, libraries, drinking water facilities, infrastructure, and quality of education.
A mobile application was developed to crowd-source data on the status of education institutes.
Issue-based crowdsourced Global Monitoring Framework for the SDGs
UNESCO MGIEP’s programme design was a crowd-sourced approach to monitor social development issues at a local level, and then map the insights gained out of this monitoring exercise to compute quantitative measures of learning, responsiveness, and competency of local communities. The underlying premise of the proposed methodology was to focus on the achievement of Goal 4.7, which is seen as central to the achievement of all other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The research objectives were as follows:
To understand and analyse the proposed methodology in terms of organisations and communities identifying issues, actions, and traceable changes (positive and negative)
To assess if the concepts and understanding of sustainable development and global citizenship lead to practice and action for sustainable development
To develop and test a technology tool to operationalise the programme and test the proposed statistical metrics of spatial correlation
To calculate quantitative scores on competency, responsiveness, and learning
Research Tools
01. Participatory tools (dotmocracy, card sorting, visual aids)
02. Developed application for crowdsourced data.
03. Advocacy toolkit for information sharing
Approach
An initial assessment was conducted with students in higher secondary schools and colleges and institute leadership to gain a better understanding of the quality of education in target regions. An advocacy toolkit was developed on the SDGs, the power of youth-driven development, details on crowdsourced data, project scope and goals, and information on youth participation for the project. Along with a presentation for the students, a worksheet was designed to capture the key issues (as perceived by the youth), their understanding of community and social issues, and their willingness to participate in the project. The project concluded with the development and piloting of a crowd-sourced data application.
