Goal 17: Partnerships For The Goals

                                             

 

Our Commitment

SDG17 focuses on strengthening the means of implementation and revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development. The Global Goals can only be met if we work together. International investments and support are needed to ensure innovative technological development, fair trade, and market access, especially for developing countries. To build a better world, we need to be supportive, empathetic, inventive, passionate, and above all, cooperative. Partnerships and Goals refer to the need for cross-sector and cross-country collaboration in pursuit of all the goals by the year 2030. It is a call for countries to align policies. It is a vision for improved and more equitable trade, as well as coordinated investment initiatives to promote sustainable development across borders. Put simply, it's about strengthening and streamlining cooperation between nation-states, both developed and developing, using the SDGs as a shared framework and a shared vision for defining that collaborative way forward. Quite simply, without significant progress on SDG 17, achieving the rest of the first 16 goals will be a near-impossible task. 

As its name suggests, the UP-hosted SDG Policy Support Initiative provides direct support to government on SDG-related policy. It is a coordinating mechanism which brings experts from academia together with the Presidency of South Africa to support evidence-informed policymaking. The University hosts a range of cross-sectoral dialogues advancing the SDGs. The SA SDG Hub aggregates research on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from South African and selected non-South African universities to make research more accessible to policy-makers. UP collaborates and plays a lead role nationally and globally in relation to the SDGs. The University hosts the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) hub on SDG2, and hosts the South Africa network of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).  UP hosts the South Africa network of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). Collaborations within the network focus on best practices and practical efforts to accelerate achievement of the SDGs. Various international collaborations are shared through the SA SDG Hub. The UP Masters in Development Practice is undertaken association with Columbia University and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Close collaboration with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network is a powerful statement of commitment to education for the SDGs. The UP Masters in Development Practice is undertaken association with Columbia University and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Various degrees at undergraduate level are offered at faculty levels. The University hosts a range of outreach educational activities on SDGs for the wider community. This has included co-hosting Times Higher Education Southern Africa Impact Forum, co-hosted by UP, focusing on sustainable development.

Relationships with NGOs and government 

  • SDG Policy: The SA SDG Hub has entered into a partnership with The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa and the GIZ to establish the Policy Support Initiative to act as a mechanism that brings together academia and policymakers to improve the use of evidence-based policymaking to advance the attainment of the SDGs within the country. Click here to read more. 

  • Supporting and guiding the Department of Basic Education curriculum with regards to the development of Scripted Lesson Plans for Comprehensive Sexuality Education for Foundation Phase, with a clear link to SDG 4 and 5. Click here to read more. 

Cross-Sectoral dialogue about SDGs 

  • A Dialogue on Informal Settlements - Academics from UP participated and presented at the "A Dialogue on Informal Settlements" at Future Africa. This was an interdisciplinary discussion on the work undertaken in informal settlements to address multiple SDGs, including SDG 6, SDG 11, and SDG 13.

  • Future Africa Dialogue Series - This was an interdisciplinary discussion on the work undertaken in informal settlements at addressing multiple SDGs. This dialogue explored the learnings from an inter and transdisciplinary urban and informal-settlement primary health care perspective. It engaged with communities, government, private sector, non-profit organisations, and other academic and national institutions for strategic planning and implementation towards a healthy city.

  • 2020 Annual Flagship - Prof. Christof Heyns participated in the SDG 16 section of the flagship Brookings/Rockefeller ‘17 Zooms’ process, which brought together thought-leaders from a wide array of backgrounds focused on identifying curve-bending cooperative actions for the SDGs over a 12-18-month horizon. Click here to read more. 

International collaboration data gathering for SDG

  • The University of Pretoria (UP) has been invited to join the prestigious Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), a leading global higher education network of 22 leading comprehensive research universities that stretches across six continents. This makes UP one of only two member-universities from South Africa and only the fourth on the African continent. The WUN capitalizes on the geographical and cultural diversity of its members by bringing together distinctive constellations of talent in a collaborative network. As exemplified by the overlapping of both UP and the WUN’s priority focus areas, the University’s inclusion in the Network will result in a range of mutually beneficial partnerships that will operate over and above the collaborations that occur spontaneously between researchers, and that will continue as before. UP’s African Global University Partnership (AGUP), in which the University’s four Transdisciplinary Research Platforms or TRPs and it is numerous internationally competitive transdisciplinary entities within faculties play a key role, is at the centre of the strategic alignment between the University and the network. The WUN membership will furthermore add considerable momentum to the University’s recognized focus on sustainability: last year UP produced its first Sustainable Development Report; as an institution, it was ranked 3rd in South Africa in the Times Higher Education (THE) 2020 Impact Rankings, and it hosts the SDG Knowledge Hub – earlier this year UP was awarded the South African Node of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Click here to read more. 

  • The University of Pretoria (UP) is representing South Africa in a multinational, cross-continental project that aims to enhance food and nutrition security in Africa and open the door to export markets. InnoFoodAfrica is a three-year project focused on South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, but extended to form a multidisciplinary consortium of 20 partners – 15 in Africa and five in Europe. The project is being funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme to the tune of €6,5m (R115,6m), with an envisaged economic impact of €7.5bn (R133bn). The project has also extended to the Faculty of Humanities. Prof Shakila Dada, Director at UP’s Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, is applying its strategies, such as graphic symbol supports, to ensure nobody is excluded from the research because of low levels of literacy, or not speaking the language of the researchers.

Collaboration for SDG best practice 

  • In 2020 Prof. Christof Heyns acted as Rapporteur for the UN Human Rights Committee in developing its General Comment No.37 on the right of peaceful assembly. This was a landmark piece of international "soft law" concerning a right central to participatory governance and sustainable development, linked to SDG 16Click here to read more. 
  • The Department of Science and Innovation used funding provided by the European Union through the Water Research Commission as implementing agency and EBIT at UP as the contractor to design and build a small-scale hydropower plant for rural electrification in the Eastern Cape, again linked to SDG 6. Click here to read more.

Collaboration with NGOs for SDGs

  • The Centre for Human Rights partners with various NGOs to deliver "short courses" on different human rights, in the context of SDG 16. For example, in 2020 the Centre partnered with the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum and African Men for Sexual Health and Rights to deliver a course on the developmental and rights-based issues linked to police's interaction with marginalized groups. Click here to read more. 

  • The Joint Community Project Module (JCP) collaborates with a variety of NGOs, two of the most notable are Gauteng Together and Keep That Gold Shining where students participate in renovation and educational activities. Click here to read more. 

  • Research programmes between UP and the Zero Abuse Project are ongoing. A compassionate care programme for law enforcement and for teachers is currently being developed, with a focus on SDG 4. Collaboration between Dr. Moen and the NGO ItStarts@home is directly related to alleviating adversity in the Eersterust community, focussing on the achievement of SDG 1.

Publication of SDG reports

The University of Pretoria's 2020 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Progress Report

Following our overarching UP 2019 Sustainable Development Report, the report on "Our contributions to achieving the SDGs: 2020 Progress Report", forms part of an emerging suite of sustainability-related reports published by the university. It's publication is a reflection of our growing maturity in, and commitment to sustainable development. 
 
In this report, we demonstrate the clear alignment between our University’s intent, and the aspirations articulated in the SDGs. Our reimagined future for the University of Pretoria supports and begins to give expression to a reimagined world. Beyond alignment, we continue to reflect deeply on what the SDGs mean in our particular contexts. This is critical to internalising and embedding their philosophies into the fabric of our institution.

To this end, in this report we have organised the SDGs into clusters, helping us to make sense of them in relation to who we are, and to also continue giving effect to our University agenda of driving a transdisciplinary, integrated and collaborative approach. We have used the central lens of our humanity – on being human, reaching our human potential, and using that potential to continuously improve our human existence – to start framing the SDGS. We also recognise that there are clear planetary boundaries and interrelationships between our social and economic development, and the sustainability of our planet. Finally, we recognise that our human condition is in co-existence with other natural systems and forms of life.
 
We also recognise that measurement of performance is an emerging space, with further work required.

Education for SDGs commitment to meaningful education

UP’s Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute offers the Master’s in Development Practice. The MPhil in Development Practice equips graduates with the intellectual, leadership, and technical competence to implement the 2030 Agenda. Click here to read more. 

Education for SDGs specific courses on sustainability

Education for SDGs in the wider community

  • The South Africa Schools Moot (and pilot projects in other countries) is an innovative experiential learning programme in partnership with the Department of Basic Education aimed at increasing awareness of and advocacy for constitutional rights. It functions as an effective and participatory form of human rights education (SDG 4 and7). Click here to read more. 

  • UP supports GDE mathematics teachers’’ professional teacher development through SciBono. Professional teacher development for teachers in the Eersterus community project. Click here and here to read more. 

  • JCP requires approximately 1700 students from EBIT to work in communities, either on educational programs (math, science, computer literacy, coding, robotics) or building/renovating structures and spaces for the communities we support. A lot of the volunteer mentors for the module continue to work on these projects, mentoring the younger students. Click here to read more. 

Read more about Goal 17 on UN website

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