Tool

Quick Guide: Raising Awareness Regarding SDGs

Thanks to their network, local governments can reach out to relevant actors in civil society and in the private sector, thus fostering a broad dialogue to make sure people learn and understand the SDGs and how seemingly impossible global challenges can be dealt with on a local level. 

The Handbook “Agenda 2030 in My Municipality” provides good insights on communicating about the SDGs and establishing this sort of dialogue with relevant stakeholders. If you are working on a communication strategy related to the Global Agendas this Handbook can be of great use to you. 

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Goal

Finding inspiration for specific activities as well as possible communication strategies for advocacy and raising awareness regarding the SDGs.

Tasks

Have a look at “Agenda 2030 in My Municipality – A Handbook for Practitioners for Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals”. This Handbook offers you a step-by-step approach to communicating about the SDGs and presenting several tools and showcases (see Chapter 3, starting at Page 19).  

First get an overview of the steps. Think about how you can adapt them to your community. Note down activities and discuss with your colleagues or workshop participants how you could implement them in your municipality. 

The handbook proposes the following steps: 

Step 1: Informing municipal staff and elected officials about SDGs 

  • First, employees and elected officials should be informed about the SDGs so that they can be well-informed in representing and disseminating them.

Step 2: Incorporating SDGs into municipal means of communication and informing the public 

  • A municipality should also incorporate its commitment to the SDGs into various forms of external communication. For example, by providing information on the municipal website, printing SDG logos on municipal documents, or including links and references in email signatures. In addition, citizens need to be directly informed about the 2030 Agenda. 

Step 3: Initiating a broad-based dialogue 

  • The third step is to initiate a broad-based dialogue and establish transparency in all actions. This ensures the engagement and participation of civil society, NGOs, local businesses, the academic community and other local partners. 

Step 4: Establishing partner groups 

  • The final step is the establishment of permanent partner groups in the municipality. Partner groups are composed of members from the private, public and civil sectors together with representatives of the municipal administration.  

If you are looking for inspiring examples on how the 2030 Agenda and SDGs can be promoted, have a look at Chapter 3.4 (Page 32). For even more ideas for events and activities, see also these two publications by the Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities. They are full of practical awareness-raising examples:  

 

Note

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Timeframe

1 to 1,5 hours

Output

Working basis for the development of an SDG communication strategy and communication activities