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Update #2 of RealKM-KM4Dev-K4DP knowledge management & SDGs campaign (9 July 2024)
A 9 July 2024 update of the knowledge management (KM) and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) campaign that is being collaboratively coordinated by RealKM Cooperative Limited, the Knowledge Management for Development Community (KM4Dev), and Knowledge for Development Partnership (K4DP).
Please help with these important campaign actions:
- Please share and publish – MEDIA RELEASE: Ahead of the UN HLPF, leading international knowledge management (KM) organisations call for multiple knowledges in the SDGs, 25 June 2024.
- Please share – Why the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will fail without a multiple knowledges approach.
- Please write and share – PLEASE HELP the KM & SDGs campaign by joining an URGENT AND IMPORTANT easy letter writing action!
- Please sign and share – Open letter to United Nations and world governments in regard to Summit of the Future and Pact for the Future.
- Please share – Editorial: We urgently need multiple knowledges to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals1.
- Please share – Libraries and Archives for Successful Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Key campaign call for action:
RealKM Cooperative Limited, the Knowledge Management for Development Community (KM4Dev), and Knowledge for Development Partnership (K4DP) call on the United Nations, its member states, and all actors to:
- acknowledge the critical role of multiple knowledges (encompassing local, tacit, experiential, community, and Indigenous knowledge) in achieving Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); and
- embed and recognize the contributions of multiple knowledge in sustainable development through the formal adoption of the knowledge-based goals of the Agenda Knowledge for Development2 (new 4th edition in preparation, 3rd edition in the interim).
Key UN milestones in reinvigorating the SDGs (most recent first):
- Summit of the Future, 20-23 September 2024 (yet to come) – Where the Pact for the Future will be formally endorsed by the UN and world governments. The Pact for the Future is the blueprint for the reinvigorated SDGs for the next six years.
- UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF), 8-17 July 2024 (now) – Where the Pact for the Future will be largely set in stone.
- Revised draft (Rev. 1) of the Pact for the Future issued on 14 May 2024 by country representatives to the UN for Germany and Namibia – Includes a new “Action 30. We will build on and complement traditional and local knowledge” that reflects the 12 February 2024 RealKM-KM4Dev-K4DP input on the zero draft, but doesn’t go far enough..
- UN Civil Society Conference Nairobi, 9-10 May 2024 – Representatives of RealKM-KM4Dev-K4DP participated and put forward the key campaign call for action (see above).
- Submission close on zero draft of the Pact for the Future, 12 February 2024 – A copy of the RealKM-KM4Dev-K4DP submission is attached to the open letter. The zero draft of the Pact for the Future was released in January 2024 for consultation.
Campaign past history (most recent first)
November 2023 to February 2024:
- In response to the HacKMthon Challenge B discussions, and with the support of the KM4Dev Core Group, Bruce Boyes initiated a RealKM-KM4Dev KM & SDGs campaign. K4DP subsequently joined the campaign.
- A RealKM-KM4Dev-K4DP campaign group started meeting weekly online to coordinate the campaign and its actions/projects, chaired by Bruce Boyes.
- Initial actions included starting to prepare the Knowledge Management for Development Journal editorial, making the submission on the Pact for the Future zero draft, and publishing the open letter.
October 2023:
- On 17 October 2023, the KM Global Network (KMGN) convened HacKMthon 2023. RealKM and KM4Dev (represented by Bruce Boyes) were the challenge owners for Challenge B which, in reaction to the very troubling findings of the SDG Progress Report: Special Edition, looked at knowledge management (KM) and the SDGs.
- Challenge B discussions highlighted how research by Sarah Cummings and colleagues3 had identified the lack of references to knowledge in the SDGs when Agenda 2030 was launched, leading to the preparation of the Agenda Knowledge for Development, but that despite this, knowledge was still missing from the SDGs.
Mid-2023:
- The SDG Progress Report: Special Edition4, published at the halfway point in UN Agenda 2030, highlighted a serious lack of progress towards the SDGs.
- In response, the UN announced plans to reboot the flagging SDGs through the “Pact for the Future” which will be endorsed by UN member states at the “Summit of the Future” in September 2024.
References:
- Al-Shorbaji, N., Atsu, P., Boyes, B., Brandner, A., Camacho Jiménez, K., Cummings, S.J.R., Dewah, P., Dhillon, R., Habtemariam, F., Kemboi, G., Kenga, M., Kiplang’at, J., Mchombu, K., Prom, C., Ribiere, V., Sanz, R., Senaji, T., Senmartin, D., Tarus, I., Young, S. & Zielinski, C. (2024). Editorial. We urgently need multiple knowledges to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Knowledge Management for Development Journal, 18(1): 1-12. ↩
- Brandner, A. & Cummings, S. (Eds.) (2018). Agenda knowledge for development: Strengthening Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Third edition. ↩
- Cummings, S., Regeer, B., De Haan, L., Zweekhorst, M., & Bunders, J. (2018). Critical discourse analysis of perspectives on knowledge and the knowledge society within the Sustainable Development Goals. Development Policy Review, 36(6), 727-742. ↩
- United Nations. (2023). The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023: Special edition. ↩
