Tag Archives: sustainable development goals

What Makes Libraries Unique in Achieving… SDG 16

DA2I means engaged citizens, informed societies, and better governance The fifth Sustainable Development Goal under review at the 2019 High Level Political Forum is SDG 16 – peace, justice and strong institutions.

It is certainly one of the broader goals, covering promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

Crucially, it’s also the SDG that refers to the importance of access to information. IFLA has of course placed a major emphasis on this goal, promoting access as necessary for progress in so many other areas.

But how to promote the libraries to people – and in particular decision-makers – who care about peaceful, fair and well-governed societies? Here are three arguments for why libraries are unique in achieving SDG16:

  • Because democracy depends on informed societies: SDG 16 focuses strongly on the importance of giving citizens the possibility to participate in decision-making. To do this, and so build a successful and sustainable democracy, people need to have a strong knowledge of current issues and the choices that any society faces. Libraries are ideal places for people to engage in civic life, and to learn about and discuss key subjects.
  • Because open government is about more than just a website: there is growing acceptance of the value of transparency as a means of fighting corruption and ensuring accountability. Yet simply creating websites or apps, or passing laws will not make a difference if no-one is using them. There is a real need to give people the encouragement and the skills to make the most of these. Libraries have both an expertise in helping people make the most of information, and increasingly are supporting open government initiatives explicitly.
  • Because the best decisions are based on the best information: people who are taking decisions, both in government and parliaments rely on the best possible evidence and support in order to get things right. This matters, as the choices they make may well affect millions of citizens. Government and parliamentary libraries play an essential role in ensuring that those in power can access the latest research and ideas, and to do the best by their citizens.

For more information, please see the chapter on SDG16 in the 2019 Development and Access to Information (DA2I) Report by Dorothy Gordon, Chair of the Intergovernmental Committee of UNESCO’s Information for All Programme.

Professional Units and the SDGs – How IFLA’s Committees are Contributing to Work on the 2030 Agenda

Professional Practice and Sustainable Development: How IFLA’s committees support engagement on the Global Goals

IFLA has placed the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals at the centre of much of its work.

They are a regular reference in our advocacy for libraries, and have provided a great way of structuring our thinking about the role of our institutions in the world today.

At the national level, many library associations and library and information workers have taken up the resources provided through IFLA’s International Advocacy Programme to launch their own work.

This makes sense. The SDGs – and the wider 2030 Agenda that contains them – are the most comprehensive, ambitious policy agenda out there.

Many governments and development agencies have explicitly made them a key pillar of their activities. Others may not refer to them so openly, but will not disagree with the framework they set out, and the subjects they highlight.

But what can cross-border professional communities – IFLA’s professional units – do? There are already some great examples here as well! This blog offers some general themes, building on work already done in 2015.

 

Spreading the Word

A number of IFLA’s sections have embraced the Sustainable Development Goals in sessions at the World Library and Information Congress. This has provided a great opportunity to explain the Goals and their relevance to different parts of the global library field.

Taking the perspective of a specific type of library, a specific service, or a specific user group can be a means of making the SDGs relevant. At the same time, this provides an opportunity to show how the SDGs can be used by library and information workers in the area to advocate for the work they do.

Talking about the SDGs is important – indeed, it is a key UN objective. The more libraries can show that we are using our potential to spread the word, the stronger a partner we become.

 

Building the Evidence

In our work at the global, regional and national levels, real-life examples of how libraries deliver on the SDGs (and other policy objectives) play a key role. They appeal to decision-makers, given their human aspect. When accompanied by evaluation, they are even stronger.

Individual professional communities within IFLA can be excellent sources of these examples, given that they bring together some of the most knowledgeable people about particular library types or services, from different parts of the world (or something like that).

Already, a number of the stories featured on IFLA’s Library Map of the World SDG Stories page are based on examples from papers submitted to sessions at WLIC. But there is lots of potential for sections to use the rest of the year to find more , for example among nominees for prizes or awards!

 

Driving Delivery

As highlighted in IFLA’s Core Values, access to information, guaranteed by high quality library services, is a key means of improving lives and promoting equality.

It follows that the work done by IFLA’s sections to enhance professional practice also enhances the capacity of libraries to support users. This is central to fulfilling the role given to all stakeholders in the 2030 Agenda to do their bit to deliver on the SDGs.

Standards, guidelines, toolkits and collections of best practices help the field to achieve Goals, from safeguarding cultural heritage (SDG 11.4) through preservation standards to reducing inequalities through guidelines for services to people with special needs (SDG 10).

 

We’d love to hear your ideas about how different sections are working with the SDGs, or of course to answer any questions.

Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: Libraries and SDG 16

Justice, Transparency, Participation, Access - Libraries Deliver Across SDG16

Starting today and continuing to Wednesday, governments, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations involved in delivering SDG16 are meeting in Rome.

In advance of the focus on this Goal in New York at the High Level Political Forum, this is an opportunity to take stock, to explore where progress is needed, and to see what solutions exist. The results will inform discussions among ministers.

IFLA is here, with the recently released Development and Access to Information report, underlining the need to focus on access to information, and the help that libraries provide in achieving this goal.

 

The Good Governance Goal

SDG16 itself is as complex as it is fundamental. It is a foundational goal which enables efforts – and success – in all others. It includes everything from reducing violence – by states and individuals – to promoting democracy and fundamental freedoms, including access to information.

It is also controversial, with it unsure until late in the process whether it would be included at all. Many states, it is true, did not want the way they managed themselves and their policies to be in the spotlight.

Four particular targets under SDG16 are relevant to libraries. This blog sets out why, and what libraries are doing to achieve them:

 

Access to Justice

SDG 16.3: Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all 

Too often, laws that are meant to protect people and their rights do not work because it is only some members of society who can enforce them. Bureaucratic and cultural barriers, as well as cost are major issues.

A further key concern is information about justice. Laws are often long and complicated, and even the best educated are unlikely to have read or understood them. Those who are most at risk of discrimination or disadvantage are particularly vulnerable.

As such, access to legal information is a key means of ensuring that more people can enjoy the rights they have. Libraries – especially through partnerships between law libraries and public libraries – can make a major contribution to ensuring that ordinary people can learn about their rights.

A great example comes from New South Wales, Australia, where for over 25 years, public libraries have been working with the Legal Information Access Centre at the State Library. Through direct consultation, and easy-read materials, this has made access to justice a reality for many who would otherwise have been left out.

 

Accountability and Transparency

SDG 16.6: Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels

Governments have a duty to their citizens to make best use of their potential to improve lives. Yet too often, there are failures or worse, with public money mis-spent, or powers misused.

These problems can be reduced (or alternative governments chosen) when there is transparency about how governments and institutions are working. Without this, citizens have nowhere to start in terms of holding those in power to account.

There is a move towards publishing ‘open government’ information, around decision-making, budgeting and spending. New platforms are being designed and put online, and citizens given the possibility to use them to come to their own conclusions.

However, simply creating the possibility is not enough. Those without internet access or technology are immediately excluded, as are those who do not know about the possibilities, and those who lack the skills and confidence to use them.

Libraries can play a key role in overcoming this situation, letting people know about what is possible, and helping them to make use of the new rights. An example from Kenya, where many people still cannot get online through a laptop of desktop, underlines what can be done.

 

Better Decision-Making

SDG 16.7: Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels

As highlighted above, governments have an important responsibility to their people to take the right decisions, not least concerning public money.

These decisions are significant, often affecting millions of people, and millions of dollars. It is broadly accepted that the best decisions are based upon wide consultation and use of evidence.

Yet as policies become more interconnected and complicated, it is not necessarily easy to achieve this, either for the governments drafting laws, or the parliaments debating them.

Libraries have a key role to play here, providing access to information for decision-makers. They bring a unique ability to collect and make available information in a form and at a time that really supports the work of governments and parliaments.

The work of IFLA’s sections on Government Libraries and Parliamentary Libraries offer many examples of what libraries can achieve in supporting responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making.

 

Access to Information

SDG 16.10: Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements

SDG 16.10 has been at the heart of IFLA’s work around the Sustainable Development Goals. Complementing the targets highlighted above that focus on access to information about government, it stresses the need for access to information in general.

Just as this goal has long been at the heart of IFLA’s SDG engagement, the mission it refers to is central to the mission of libraries in general.

Through providing information in whatever form or from whatever source is relevant, libraries help people to seize opportunities and take better decisions. This access is therefore a key part of a development framework focused on empowering individuals to make their own choices.

Despite predictions of the demise of libraries in a digital age, their role has arguably been strengthened, as the importance of skills, physical spaces, and a welcoming environment have become clearer.

The Development and Access to Information Report, of which the second edition was launched last week, offers many examples, across the SDGs, of how this access makes a difference.

 

 

 

Libraries at the African Youth SDGs Summit

Damilare Oyedele at the African Youth SDGs Summit

Damilare Oyedele at the African Youth SDGs Summit

By Damilare Oyedele, Library and You

Over 1,200 young people from across Africa gathered at Accra International Conference Centre, Accra Ghana from 7th – 9th November for the 2nd edition of the African Youth SDGs Summit.

The African Youth SDGs Summit is an annual continental summit that gathers young people from across Africa to deliberate and design solutions that will facilitate the gradual implementation and accomplishment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union 2063 Agenda.

This year, the theme for the summit was “Partnership with Youth to Achieve the SDGs: Moving from Policy to Actions”. The 3-day continental gathering of young changemakers across Africa created blueprints, networks, and implementation plans for young people’s engagement and inclusion in SDG planning and implementation across the continent.

In view of this, the importance of access to information as a necessity to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals was also deliberated upon on the day 3 of the summit. To this Damilare Oyedele, Co-Founder & Chief Executive; Library and You had a parallel session where he made a presentation on; Libraries in our society: Prerequisite for the successful accomplishment of the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa. The presentation gave birth to a project launch called Library Impact Project: access to information for Africa’s development

Library Impact Project is an initiative designed to provide capacity, create awareness on how libraries can contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with the view to facilitate partnerships and collaborations with policymakers, individuals, changemakers across Africa to engage libraries in their countries to accomplish the SDGs.

It is obvious that Africa’s future lies in the hands of her youths, and we all have the responsibility to take action and create sustainable solutions that will transform ‘Mother Africa’, to create the Africa we want, to create a better place for the current generation and generations unborn. However, for this to be a feasibility, access to information for all is eminent beyond comparison.

Here, but Not Evenly Distributed: Libraries, Innovation and the Right to Science

Every innovation with global impact nonetheless starts somewhere. The World Wide Web was conceived of at CERN in Geneva. Radio in Bologna, Italy, block printing in China.

Between the moment of invention – or discovery – and worldwide uptake, there is a more or less rapid spread, through communication, trade, and imitation.

Who is able to benefit from the results of scientific research and innovation (and when) has a major impact on development. A key example today is still the internet, to which only half of the world’s population currently have access.

This situation provides a reminder (if one was needed) of William Gibson’s quote about the future, which he described as ‘here, but not evenly distributed’.

It also provides a reminder (much more necessary, most likely) of Article 27a of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which underlines that ‘everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits’.

What was written in 1948 is as relevant as ever today. The need to support the spread of new technologies to developing countries features in the UN’s 2030 Agenda (SDG 17). In line with the overall objective of the Agenda, no-one should be left behind for want to access to existing ideas.

This is not just a question of luck or economics, but of fundamental rights. We need to make the road from invention and discovery to global application as short as possible.

What stands in the way?

A key issue highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights in her 2012 report is excessive privatisation of knowledge. There always needs to be means of giving access to science, of finding a balance between incentivising creation and giving everyone a chance to benefit. When the cost of articles, books or other materials is too high, people are excluded.

Libraries provide a key response to this. Through their own collections – and collaboration across borders – they have a major role in the spread of innovation and research. At the same time, they access content legally, and make a major contribution to the creation and publishing of knowledge.

In this same spirit, libraries have also been at the heart of the Open Access movement – trying to find a model of sharing knowledge without any financial barriers. Open Access also features among the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur.

The broader Open Science movement offers further possibilities, ensuring that it is not just the results of innovation, but the process itself that is as inclusive and effective as possible.

 

A focus on sharing not just technology, but all forms of knowledge, is arguably missing from the UN 2030 Agenda. And there are questions – around expanding internet access, and finding sustainable models for Open Access. Yet the key elements of any future drive in this area are in place in the shape of libraries.

Clearly we are still some way from delivering the right to science, but the Universal Declaration reminds us that the effort is worth it.

The Economist and the Librarian: What the Nobel Prize Tells Us about Open Access and Libraries

Open Access and Libraries

Paul Romer, one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2018, has been recognised for his work on how innovation can allow for continued growth. His insights into the nature and role of knowledge – and in particular of access to knowledge – offer welcome support for some of the key functions of libraries in providing access and skills to all.

Libraries and economics are rarely seen together in the same sentence. Indeed, libraries are seen by many as the reverse of economics – a public service aimed at promoting well-being. A long way away from business and profits.

They are, arguably, the answer to the failures of free market economics, which would risk seeing people on low incomes, or who are otherwise disadvantaged, neglected by businesses.

However, the Nobel prize for economics offered a couple of weeks ago to Paul Romer, alongside William Nordhaus, provides an important affirmation of what libraries do.

Paul Romer’s key achievement has been to create models that explain the contribution of research and innovation to long-term growth. The key document here is his 1990 article on Endogenous Technological Change.

Rather than seeing the development of new ideas it as something external, Romer underlines that it was possible – in theory as well as fact – for economies to keep on growing thanks to investing in research and innovation.

Importantly, this also meant that it wasn’t just the number of people, or the amount of capital (machines, computers, investment) that determined growth, but the skills of the population – human capital – that counts.

 

Why Knowledge – and Access – Matters

The key factor in Romer’s calculations is the unique nature of knowledge.

He underlines that knowledge – ideas – are not ‘rival’. Unlike a piece of food or clothing, one person having an idea does not mean that someone else cannot. Ideas are not exhausted by being known or used.

They are also not easy to keep to yourself. Economists talk about excludability – the possibility to prevent other people from using things. This is easy with a piece of food or clothing, but not so much with ideas and knowledge.

There are intellectual property rights, which create legal possibilities to exclude others from ideas as a means of ensuring some return on investment. However, as Romer’s model sets out, this exclusion is only ever partial.

Because in Romer’s model, it is the fact that knowledge is accessible – that it contributes to the sum of human knowledge – that means it can have such a positive impact on growth.

Once an idea or piece of research is produced, it feeds into the work of others, who can then come up with new ideas and research. While intellectual property rights stand in the way of reproducing and selling the same piece of work, it is possible for everyone to be inspired by it, and go further.

This removes the limits that a certain population – or amount of capital – places on growth. Thanks to wise use of knowledge, promoting accessibility while finding means of rewarding creators for their work, it becomes easier to sustain the growth that pays for crucial public services.

 

Libraries and Open Access

There is plenty here that speaks to the role of libraries.

As institutions dedicated to supporting access to knowledge, libraries play an important role in realising Romer’s key point that innovation benefits from full access to the stock of existing ideas.

Romer underlines the importance of trade in facilitating the spread of ideas and innovation. Libraries, through cross-border activities, help achieve the same.

Open Access plays a vital role here. Free and meaningful access makes a reality of Romer’s suggestion that new ideas join a stock that is available to researchers and innovators everywhere as a basis for further progress.

Paywalls risk weakening this effect, and this potential.

For researchers in countries at risk of being left behind, they can lock them out completely. One of the more chilling conclusions of Romer’s work is that in some situations, there risks being no incentive to invest in research, seriously damaging the country’s growth prospects. We need to fight against this.

Clearly, free does not always mean accessible. If there is no effort to make a piece of research easy to discover and use, it will not really join the stock of knowledge out there promoting human progress.

Libraries help here also through managing repositories, developing standards, and helping researchers find what they need.

Libraries also respond to Romer’s key policy recommendation – the value of developing human capital (skills) in an economy. This – rather than efforts to extract money from those who make further use of ideas in order further to support rightholders – is the most practical way to boost innovation.

 

Paul Romer’s ideas have had a major impact on how governments, and intergovernmental organisations think about growth, and how to support it. While not mentioned in his key article, supporting libraries and open access seems a good way to go about it.