Agenda 21 knows that SDG 17 – Partnership for the Goals – is a prerequisite for us to advance in implementing UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For a 4 months period, they have been gathering at the same table different actors that have a key role to play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
‘A public partnership for a sustainable, fair and open Europe ‘ aimed at strengthening the European project for the benefit of EU citizens through partnerships between local authorities, civil society organizations and educational institutions, while also involving a great number of young people in the implementation of the SDGs, thus supporting Romania’s program in fulfilling the mission assumed as President of the EU Council.
APPD-Agenda 21’s campaign reached to
Direct beneficiaries
Indirect beneficiaries
Online reach
What better way to start it than gathering all these actors for planning the following actions? Given so, the project took off in March with a thematic workshop, having more than 70 participants involved, from Bucharest, Buzău and Tulcea. The aim was to establish the priorities of this working group according to their needs, in coordination with the priorities of Romania in its quality of President of the EU Council. The results helped in shaping Agenda 21’s campaign:
- Transposing the Sustainable Development Goals at local level;
- Importance of life-long learning and quality education for all – the role of education in Romania’s economic development;
- Emphasis on SDG11: Sustainable cities and communities – which also became the objective of the public campaign;
- Elaboration of a first draft of the position paper on: education, social inclusion, multiculturalism, European values, cohesion.
The public campaign lasted 3 months, between April and June, in each of the upper-mentioned counties from Romania (București, Buzău, Tulcea). APDD-Agenda 21 enjoyed the support of a variety of partners for preaching our sustainability cause: 10 schools, the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE), county councils or non governmental associations. In order to support the `Today’s Romania in Tomorrow’s Europe ` campaign, an informative brochure and a series of infographics tackling SDGs in Romania were created and distributed – especially to young people.
The final conference of the project, which took place on the 5th of June 2019, was just the moment to showcase some insights from the public campaign and announce the winner of the video competition about SDG11. The short video spots were built around social inclusion, resilience, adapting to environmental and societal challenges, respect for diversity and human security.
At the same time, a final version of the position paper `manifesto` was ready to be distributed. The paper was written with valuable input from young people, and it is underlining the importance of strengthening civil society capacity and stressing the importance of involving young people in drafting and influencing public policies at European and global level. In preparation for this drafting exercise, the young people conducted an analysis of the National Strategy for Romania’s Sustainable Development 2030 and European Commission’s Reflection paper: Towards a Sustainable Europe by 2030, which was launched in 2019.
Partnerships are very important because they bring together different stakeholders with different interests and puts them together to talk, to discuss, to get to know each other and their needs. And I believe that the achievement of the SDGs cannot be fulfilled without a very strong partnership between private and public actors. And that is why we wanted to have these actors involved in the project, that is why we worked with schools. But we also involved civil society organisations and local authorities.
Some of their immediate outputs such as: brochures for public campaigns, video competitions on sustainable cities and communities and the position paper resulted after all consultations took place are only small steps, but decisive ones, towards a more open, fair and sustainable Europe in the world. Listen in to our podcast below and hear more about their role in the EU Presidency project and their future plans! Once convicted for sustainable development, there is no going back!