Tag Archives: UN SDGs

Libraries: The Forgotten Science-Policy Interface?

A regular refrain in discussions about progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is that we still face major gaps in the evidence to support decision-making.

Either the data and analysis aren’t there, or they are, but they’re not getting into the right hands.

A first result is that many of the indicators of progress towards the SDGs are effectively empty, either for all or for many countries – i.e. we don’t know where we stand now..

A second is that when leaders are making choices about how to invest resources, and how to intervene in economies and societies, they are not doing it on a sound basis – i.e. we don’t know how to move forwards successfully.

The 2030 Agenda is of course not the first time that this has come up as an issue. In past discussions, one approach has been to develop a ‘science-policy interface’ or SPI.

Given that libraries too – especially government and parliamentary libraries – themselves are closely involved in the work of supporting evidence-based policy-making, this blog explores existing SPIs, and sets out why libraries themselves should work with this term in their own advocacy.

Why SPIs?

At a conceptual level, the Science-Policy Interface refers to engagement between the research and policy communities. Through a stronger interface, it is argued, science should become more of an enabler in policy design, implementation, monitoring, follow-up and review, and give the opportunity to take a more strategic overview of linkages, barriers and opportunities to progress.

Building such an interface requires an effort from both communities. Researchers themselves need to take a stronger cue from the wider world in determining the questions they should look to answer, be they around climate change, equality or any other issues. Politicians should be readier to draw on expertise rather than to pursue popularism or ideology.

With these changes, we can hope both to accelerate the generation of new insights into our climate and society, and to overcome hesitations to take necessary actions.

Existing models have looked to do just this, primarily in the environmental field when it comes to the United Nations – see this great overview from IISD. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is perhaps the best-known example, but similar efforts played a role in the banning of CFCs, and also now in work around desertification.

In these practical cases, the ‘interface’ has been in the form of a committee of experts who meet and work together in order to identify challenges and work towards consensus on solutions. These groups can be relatively open, although then do need to address key questions around how they define roles and processes, and maintain credibility and sufficient coherence. Given that they are often dealing with evolving research, there is also plenty of room for disagreement.

Recent guidance from the United Nations Environment Programme has therefore, for example, stressed the need to ensure representativeness (including through forming links with partners globally), clear rules around mandates, and good governance.

Another example is the Global Sustainable Development Report (GDSR), which comes out every four years, and looks to provide a cross-disciplinary overview of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is perhaps less of a process than the SPIs mentioned above, but fulfils the same function of bringing insights from research to the heart of policy-making.

Libraries supporting SPIs

There are three potential ways in which libraries contribute to the goals of Science-Policy Interfaces.

The first is simply by ensuring that SPIs are able to benefit from access to the fullest possible evidence base. While the role of libraries is all too often overlooked, both the individual scientists involved in SPIs, and processes as a whole, can benefit from support in getting hold of research, organising information, and sharing it.

This is particularly relevant when it comes to the sort of inter-disciplinary work that SPIs – and the GDSR in particular – promote. Libraries are a key part of the infrastructure for gathering and making such evidence available, as for example highlighted in the Cochrane Call which IFLA signed last year.

While they may not always have the name ‘library’, knowledge hubs, data repositories and other initiatives can ensure that SPIs can focus on the discussions that need to take place. Such tools are indeed a key goal as set out in a 2019 UN Environment Assembly resolution.

Meanwhile, through their understanding of the research space, libraries can also help identify where there are potential gaps or weaknesses.

The second way is through wider advocacy for open access and open science. This can support both interdisciplinarity, and use of scientific outputs in government.

This is because when research outputs are hidden behind paywalls, there is a greater risk that faculties and the libraries that serve them will only focus on resources within the disciplines on which they focus, rather than materials form elsewhere. Paywalls can also mean that government departments with few resources prefer to rely on grey literature, unready to pay publishers for access to their databases.

As a result, by promoting open access and science – both through advocating and by providing key infrastructures such as repositories, libraries can help deliver on a key enabler of SPIs.

The third way is by themselves being a permanent Science-Policy Interface within government and wider law-making. Many government and parliamentary libraries have a role as a gateway, helping to ensure that key emerging insights and information are presented to policymakers in a way that works for them.

In this, the skills and values of libraries can play an important role, helping to assess the quality of different sources, but also then to present information in as neutral a way as possible, in order to enable the best possible decision-making.

 

The need to base decisions on evidence is increasingly pressing as the time left to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda becomes less and less. The emphasis on Science-Policy Interfaces is therefore likely to grow in importance at the UN level.

This should be an opportunity for libraries to demonstrate just one further way in which we can support the delivery of the 2030 Agenda, and to secure the role and resources we need to fulfil our potential.

The 6 Ps of Libraries and the SDGs

Presentations of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) often highlight their focus on five ‘P’s – people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships.

These help underline the different dimensions of the 2030 Agenda, running from the individual to the global, the balance between the different pillars of sustainable development, and the vital role of collaboration in achieving success.

As such, they are a helpful reference point in making sense of a set of goals which are, admittedly wide and complex. While the SDGs are organised around different policy areas, the five ‘P’s arguably work at a more human level, touching on issues that, hopefully, make sense for everyone.

The same device can help in thinking about how libraries themselves contribute to SDG delivery. In this blog, we look not at five, but six ‘P’s of libraries and development. These break down into two sets of three, reflecting both traditional and emerging roles of libraries.

 

The Traditional Roles: Protectors, Providers, emPowerers

When looking for the first time at the SDGs, the targets that often stand out most for libraries are 11.4 (safeguarding heritage), 16.10 (access to information), and 4.6 (universal literacy). They can serve as a powerful entry point to engagement with the SDGs, underlining the alignment between libraries’ core missions, and the goals set out by world leaders back in 2015.

These goals, in effect, highlight our first three ‘P’s of libraries and the SDGs:

Protectors: libraries, and in particular national and research libraries have a key role in safeguarding our heritage for the future (SDG 11.4). Through this work, they give future generations the opportunity both to enjoy and learn from the past.

While this is an explicit goal in SDG 11.4, it is also implicit elsewhere, not least SDG 16.6 – effective, accountable and transparent institutions. Without the work of libraries and archives to preserve and store documents, it becomes far too easy to hide, and so escape responsibility for, past actions.

Providers: libraries of course have a core function in ensuring equitable access to information, regardless of revenue, through the works in their collections.

SDG 16.10 highlights this in particular, but other goals also stress the importance of access, including 2.3 (access to knowledge in agriculture), 3.7 (access to health information), 9.5 (supporting scientific research) and 13.3 (access to information about climate change).

EmPowerers: Libraries have long understood that meaningful access to information is not just about the availability of information, but the skills to use it. This is why we have librarians! Looking beyond fundamental literacy – the objective of target 4.6 – the SDGs also recognise that wider skills are necessary if we are to achieve development.

For example, target 4.4 focuses on wider skills for life, and 5B underlines the need for women to have the competences necessary to use enabling technologies such as ICTs. Target 17.8 also highlights the need for all to become digitally literate, in order to make full use of the internet.

 

The Emerging Roles: Portals, Partners, Platforms

Nonetheless, the work of libraries goes further still. What makes this possible is when libraries are able to collaborate, uniting their own unique strengths with those of others, from government, civil society or business.

The other three ‘P’s refer to these collaborations, where libraries increase the impact of the work done by a wide range of different actors in order to achieve the SDGs. In turn, these demonstrate the ability of libraries to contribute to success across the board.

Portals: rather than just providing services themselves, libraries often act as an entry point to services offered by others. From noticeboards and internet access to more active signposting, the library can be a great way for people to access more specialist help or support.

Crucially, visiting the library may not be associated with the same stigma as visiting a job centre or other official building, while the presence of staff can give users the possibility to find their way through the huge volume of information available otherwise.

In turn, libraries help increase the impact of other services by increasing take-up rates among the communities that need them, as well as providing free promotion in general.

Partners: going beyond providing access to services elsewhere, libraries can increase the range of services on offer within the library through forming partnerships. For example, supporting digital skills, running discussion series, or running courses cannot always rest on the shoulders of librarians.

Instead, the library can bring together its own staff, space and nature as a community meeting point with the skills of others – coding clubs, local associations, continuing education centres – in order to provide an offer that drives progress across the SDGs.

Platforms: finally, and faced with the need for efficiency in public spending and effectiveness in wider service delivery, we are seeing increasing examples of libraries acting as platforms for others.

From community healthcare to census sign-up, or from meeting rooms for business to acting as nodes in local WiFi networks, libraries can also provide a unique solution for the delivery of services, even with relatively little day-to-day input from librarians.

In the case of public services, they can mean there is less need for separate offices, and also help residents by providing them with a ‘one-stop-shop’ where they can access both library and other services. In the case of support to the private sector, while there clearly is a need to avoid unfair competition with others, libraries can be a lifeline for smaller emerging businesses that can drive local jobs and prosperity.

 

The six roles presented here, hopefully, provide a useful tool for thinking through how libraries help deliver not only on the SDGs, but also on any other policy goals. In particular in the case of the last three, it is clear that the contribution of libraries is not restricted to a subset of the SDGs, but can stretch across the 2030 Agenda, and beyond.

 

See also our infographic highlighting the 20 SDG targets which refer, implicitly or explicitly to the SDGs.

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #36: Get Your Work Recognised

10 Minute Library Advocate #36 Text: Get your work recognised. Image: hands clappingYour advocacy is stronger when you can show the support of others.

Being able to point to other sites or sources that talk about your work helps build credibility.

It sends the message that it’s normal for people to think that your library is important!

But how to make this happen?

Sometimes it’s a case of getting a newspaper to write about what you’re doing, or getting on TV or radio.

But sometimes, you can do things directly.

So for our 36th 10-Minute Library Exercise, get your work recognised.

Find a site or platform where you can profile your work.

In particular, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Action Week offers the possibility to put your actions on a map.

Go to this page, and add in what you are doing, for example, to raise awareness of or deliver the SDGs.

And then use the profile created in your own daily advocacy work!

Good luck!

 

See the introduction and previous posts in our 10-Minute Library Advocate series and join the discussion in social media using the #EveryLibrarianAnAdvocate hashtag!

What Makes Libraries Unique in Achieving… SDG13

DA2I means understanding how to address climate change, from the individual to the global levelsThe fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) up for review at the 2019 High Level Political Forum is SDG13 – Climate Action.

It underlines the need to take urgent action to tackle climate change and its impacts, with progress needed from the planetary to the individual levels. This is perhaps the clearest example of an issue that requires a truly global approach, as well as the one that poses the most obvious threat to the future of humanity.

Within the library field, the green library movement has for years promoted the contribution that our institutions can make to reducing their own impact on the environment, as well as promoting more sustainable behaviour elsewhere – see our article “Sustainability is Libraries’ Business” on this topic, already translated into seven languages.

But how to explain this role effectively to politicians? Here are three arguments why libraries are unique in achieving SDG13:

  • Because we need research at the global level: the first step in tackling the climate crisis is to understand it. Research collaboration between experts around the world has helped show what is happening, and how this is already impacting lives in different parts of the world. This effort needs to continue, as does sharing of practices on how to mitigate this. Libraries are essential to support this research, including by facilitating sharing across borders, and promoting open access.
  • Because everyone has a role to play: SDG13 underlines the role that individual behaviour change will play. In all countries, there will be need to be more efficient and less wasteful in the way we live our lives. Libraries have a unique reach into their communities, and can act not only as examples to their users by adopting sustainable practices, but can also be an access point for wider information about how to live more greenly.
  • Because the sharing economy helps reduce consumption: a key driver of climate change is over-consumption of manufactured goods. Yet it is not efficient for everyone to have one of everything, for example tools or even household appliances. Libraries are an early example of the sharing economy, with a focus on books, but are not lending out other items which people would otherwise need to buy. In this way, they limit the need to produce new goods, and so create further emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

For more, see the chapter on SDG13 in the 2019 Development and Access to Information (DA2I) Report by Karl Falkenberg.  

What Makes Libraries Unique in Achieving… SDG10

DA2I means giving everyone the opportunity and skills to use knowledge to improve their livesSustainable Development Goal 4 is the third of the SDGs on the agenda at the 2019 High Level Political forum.

It focuses on reducing inequality within and among countries, recognising not only that individuals have a right to be treated equitably, but also that this contributes to sustainable development in general.

Libraries themselves have a strong commitment to equity. As institutions open for all, they welcome everyone, and many have a specific role to help those most at risk of marginalisation. This is important, given the importance of access to information for development .

But how to make the case for the unique role of libraries in reducing inequalities? Here are three ideas:

  • Because access to information, education and culture is a human right: all countries, through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent conventions, have committed to giving everyone the possibility to access information, get an education, and take part in the cultural life of the community. Libraries provide an excellent way of doing this, and so allowing countries to comply with international law.
  • Because information poverty reinforces income poverty: when people lack access to information, they are not able to take the best decisions, or even to access programmes and projects which could help them escape poverty. They then risk falling deeper into trouble, while others succeed. Libraries provide a means of combatting information poverty, by ensuring that income, social status or other factors are not a barrier.
  • Because providing a service for all matters: programmes targeted at specific groups play an important role in combatting inequality. Nonetheless, by offering a service to some and not others, such efforts can reinforce the idea of being different or apart, which may discourage some. Public libraries have a mission to be universal – i.e. to serve everyone – meaning that the support they offer does not come with the risk of underlining difference.

For more see the chapter on SDG 10 in the 2019 Development and Access to Information (DA2I) Report by Professor Tim Unwin, UNESCO Chair on ICT for Development.

New Opportunities: Libraries and the United Nations in 2019

Libraries and the United Nations in 2019

As those who were able to attend the relevant sessions at the World Library and Information Congress in Kuala Lumpur heard, 2019 will be a big year at the United Nations for libraries. There will be a focus on Sustainable Development Goals that are particularly relevant for our institutions, and key steps will be taken towards a review both of the overall 2030 agenda, and the indicators used to measure progress.

But it’s also an important year for the UN itself, with new structures now in place. These also have implications for the way libraries engage with the SDGs at the national level. This blog sets out some of the key moments and opportunities in the coming year.

 

A High Level Political Forum Focused on Core Library Business

Each year, the UN selects a number of SDGs as a focus for the High Level Political Forum. These also shape the preparations for the event, and even voluntary national reviews.

This year, the focus is on education (SDG4), employment and growth (SDG8), equality (SDG10), climate change (SDG13) and strong institutions, including access to information (SDG16). These are all areas where it does not take too much effort to build understanding of how libraries make a difference to individual’s lives and societal progress.

These themes will each be the subject of a ‘thematic’ meeting. While education has already taken, place, SDG 8 will be the subject of a meeting on 4-5 April in Geneva, Switzerland, SDG10 of one in Accra, Ghana on 27-28 March, SDG13 will be addressed on 1-3 April in Copenhagen, and SDG16 is provisionally on the agenda on 3-5 April in Rome, Italy.

These will discuss key challenges and progress made, and set out recommendations for how the world can do better and acheive the goals set out in the 2030 Agenda.

There will also be five regional meetings: for Europe and North America (21-22 March, Geneva), Asia-Pacific (27-29 March, Bangkok), Arab Countries (16-18 April, Beirut), Latin America and the Caribbean (22-26 April, Santiago), and Africa (16-18 April, Morocco, tbc).

These give the chance to take a regional perspective, looking at the specific issues in different parts of the world, as well as facilitating peer learning. They are also great opportunities to meet with national officials leading on coordinating SDG implementation.

IFLA will be looking to take the chance to be heard at the High Level Political Forum – and the thematic and regional meetings. We hope that local libraries will also be involved! But all libraries can also contribute by reminding national SDG teams of the contributions they make in these areas.

We’ll be in touch with ideas for how to do this!

 

A Review of the 2030 Agenda and Indicator Framework

Four years on from the agreement of the SDGs, the original text agreed by member states provided for a review of the agenda as a whole. We are now at that stage, offering an opportunity to think again about how work around the SDGs is organised and implemented.

In parallel, an expert group made up of governments and representatives of various UN agencies will hold a consultation about updates to the set of indicators used to measure progress against the SDGs.

In both of these processes, it will be important both to defend what is good about the SDGs – not least the reference to access to information – but also work to improve things. Civil society organisations – not least IFLA and library associations – could have more voice, and voluntary national reviews could be more inclusive. We also need better indicators of access to information across the board.

A key point will be the SDG Summit, held in September as part of the UN General Assembly, which will set out a political declaration, present a number of voluntary commitments and reaffirm the 2030 Agenda as a whole.

We’ll be in touch at key moments in the year to explain how you can help convince your governments of the need to promote the changes libraries need to make the 2030 Agenda better still.

 

New Contacts, New Possibilities

The UN is a huge organisation. In addition to its core elements (including the Sustainable Development Division within the Department of Economic and Social Affairs), there are many agencies and other bodies linked to it, not least the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Many of these do work in different countries, operating offices, supporting projects, and raising awareness.

In order to promote greater consistency in this work, the UN agreed to give more power to the ‘resident coordinators’ – the top member of staff in each country, to help them coordinate better. This is part of a broader reform strategy,  covering internal organisation, responsibilities and funding.

The resident coordinators will have a particular role in focusing support efforts linked to the SDGs (taking this over from local UN Development Programme representatives), and will also have more formal powers and funding, making them an even stronger potential contact for library associations.

Especially in countries where there are a number of UN projects in place, the new resident coordinators are potentially very useful contacts for libraries and library associations. They will be happy to know that local institutions are promoting the SDGs, and could help ensure that libraries benefit from projects aimed at implementing them.

You can find details of the coordinator in your country – and other relevant contacts, by clicking on the map at the bottom of the UN country activities page.

 

2019 will be a year of opportunities to underline the value of libraries. We will only need to make sure we are ready to seize them. IFLA will work with its members to ensure that this is the case.

 

You can find further information on libraries and the SDGs on the IFLA website. See in particular our briefs about Voluntary National Reviews, and Data and the SDGs,  our timeline, and our webinar from September 2018 (in English, French and Spanish).

In order to get involved yourself, take a look also at our toolkit, our poster ‘This Library Supports the SDGs’, and our infographic setting out all of the SDG targets where access to information is implicitly or explicitly mentioned. You can find some great ideas for advocacy around the SDGs in the slidepack from our session at WLIC 2019, and look out for our ‘10-Minute Library Advocate‘ guide coming very soon!

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.