SDG Goal 17 Leadership Forum hosted by Unilever and GlobeScan
Read the full report from our online discussion of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 17 on global partnerships for sustainability.
Learn from the perspectives of 328 participants who explored how partnerships can help fund the Goals and scale up social entrepreneurs. Our discussion focused on the impact partnerships can have in the provision of new models of financing the Goals and in empowering small-scale social entrepreneurs to scale up innovations to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
What is Sustainable Development Goal 17?
SDG 17 aims to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.
SDG Forum 17 discussion experts included:
- Civil Society
- Government
- Mulilateral Corporations
- Private Sector
Discussion Summary:
Overall, we learned that a successful partnership needs a galvanising collective vision, alignment between partners and strong foundations including defined roles and robust project management. Looking at finance partnerships specifically, the richness of the debate demonstrates that there remain many unresolved challenges in creating effective partnerships for financing progress on the SDGs. Among the challenges, however, dozens of examples of solutions, ideas and established resources were shared by participants in our discussions.
The challenges and solutions are summarised across five crucial stages of partnership:
- Establishing the business case for financing the SDGs
- Finding the right funding partners
- Building trust
- Effective execution
- Impact measurement
Key Learnings
Collaboration is essential for delivering the SDGs. To be effective, partners should ensure that collaborations fulfill three foundational criteria:
- Agreement on a long-term vision and commitment to the SDGs
- Alignment on objectives, communication and transparency
- Operational effectiveness through defined roles, strong project management and impact measurement.
“The SDGs need transformational change to be achieved, and therefore to require transformational partnerships.”
– Rebecca Marmot, Global VP Advocacy & Partnerships, Unilever
SDG 17 Forum Report
Read the full report to find out more about the Roadmap for Funding Partnerships, examples of innovative partnerships for financing SDG progress and social enterprise scaling and access to funding to create successful partnerships.
download the report
About the GlobeScan SDG Leadership Series
The GlobeScan SDG Leadership Series is a set of seventeen online discussions and each Forum will focus on one Global Goal, connecting experts and opinion leaders to share ideas and actions for making progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Read reports on past SDG Leadership Forums:
- SDG Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being
- SDG Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
- SDG Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
- SDG Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- SDG Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
- SDG Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
- SDG Goal 14: Life Below Water
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