Five SSIR Articles for U.N. Week

The United Nations General Assembly's 72nd session is underway in New York, and a handful of adjacent events—all focused on driving progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—are being held on the sidelines. Perhaps you’re in town, helping shape and influence the discussion. Or maybe you’re on the ground doing the hard work of leading social good initiatives across the globe.

We’ve rounded up a handful of SSIR articles related to the SDGs.

 

1. Using Design Thinking to Eradicate Poverty Creation
Martin Kirk, Jason Hickel, and Joe Brewer question whether the SDG goal of “ending poverty in all its forms everywhere” by 2030 is the right premise to start from. They argue that applying design-thinking principles to tackle global poverty, while up-ending SDG priories, would be more effective at addressing the root causes that create poverty.

 

2. A Portfolio Approach to Social Innovation Partnerships
No invention or idea can achieve the scale necessary to sustain positive impact without drawing on expertise and resources from across the public, private, and social sectors, write Steve Davis and Elaine Gibbons, PATH’s CEO and director of corporate engagement. To achieve the SDG targets, they argue, multisector collaborations need more flexible management models.

 

3. Collective Impact Without Borders
Arani Kajenthira, a former associate director at FSG, and Philippe Sion, a managing director at FSG, share two fundamental pieces of advice for building multinational, cross-sector approaches to addressing social problems: Building relationships and testing interest before investing in local capacity, and engaging early and often with government leaders.

 

4. Embracing the Business of Development
Rubayat Khan, co-founder of mPower Social Enterprises, argues that achieving SDG 17, which urges action to revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development, is the fundamental starting place for achieving any of the 16 other goals.

 

5. Rethinking the Global Development Convening
This year marks the first since 2005 without a convening of the Clinton Global Initiative—a forum that established itself as an important event for many policymakers, philanthropists, and NGOs. In this piece, Andrew Stern and two of his Global Development Incubator colleagues share what they think the development world actually needs in such an event—and how future “multistakeholder initiatives” can be even more impactful.

Read other SDG-related articles focused on conservation, education, and clean water.

Read more stories by Eden Stiffman.