SDG Learncast

According to the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2021, although 46% of sub-Saharan Africa's population now has access to electricity--up from 33% in 2010--the region is far behind the global average of 90%. 97 million people in urban areas and 471 million in rural areas are still without access to electricity.   The lack of access is caused by several factors. On the demand side, there are low uptake and expensive connection charges while on the supply side, the energy sources are unreliable since more of the existing options in the region are renewable decentralized grids. This unreliability drives blackouts and brownouts.  In this episode, we feature Camila dos Santos Gonçalves and Grace Chenxin Liu, who are members of the New York Academy of Sciences, which selects 1,000 of the world's brightest high school students (ages 13-17) to become part of The Junior Academy. The members are then given a global challenge to work on, together with mentors and experts, to learn how to understand global problems and find approaches to address them.  In this year's challenge, the group was tasked to work on the Flexible Use of Electricity. After two months, the team of young people from different parts of the world presented their approach of using space satellites to respond to the energy needs but also approaching the issue holistically, addressing systemic issues, gender equality, and climate change.  Listen to this episode to learn more about how Camila, Grace and their team use space satellites to provide electricity to the most vulnerable groups in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit the UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/. 

Misinformation and disinformation are pressing public issues. There has been a rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation. Sometimes we call them fake news. This happens online and offline and it affects everyone, every day. Receiving truthful and quality information is critical as we all depend on information to make decisions.  At the personal level, we need accurate information to make decisions about health and who we vote for. And at the global level, we need established facts to make collective decisions on pressing issues. Such as pandemics climate change and resolving conflicts. The UN Secretary-General and his report 'Our Common Agenda' called the large-scale spread of disinformation and the undermining of scientifically established facts as an existential risk to humanity. In this episode, we will be speaking with Dr. Julian Jaursch, Project Director at the SNV in Berlin, working on Strengthening the Digital Public Space. Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast.  Visit the UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/. 

Blockchain technology has been leveraged in humanitarian settings by the World Food Programme to deliver cash directly to beneficiaries securely and quickly, without the need to go through a local bank. The potential of blockchain applications in protecting the environment has also been tested to eliminate illegal fishing in the tuna industry. Blockchain applications are also being considered to provide a transparent, trustworthy way to show how nations are taking action to reduce their impact on the climate.  In this SDG Learncast episode, we spoke with Ms. Thy-Diep "Yip" Ta, co-founder of UNIT Ventures and DLT Talents, to unpack the blockchain technology for our podcast listeners and explain how the blockchain technology can also help vulnerable groups get access to financial resources, support people working in the care economy, and creating more incentives for collaboration, transparency, and good behavior through the blockchain technology. Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit the UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/. 

The data revolution is the unprecedented increase in the volume and types of data—and the subsequent demand for them—thanks to the ongoing yet uneven proliferation of new technologies. We need data to formulate sustainable development policies. But it requires that we collect accurate data and use this evidence to inform policymaking. The use of evidence derived from data in policymaking requires the capability to collect and analyze accurate data and a way to make evidence available to decision-makers.  In this episode, we will speak with Dr. Emmanuel Letouzé, the Director of Data-Pop Alliance, a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization, which he founded in 2013 with MIT Media Lab, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and ODI. This episode will talk about ensuring that vulnerable groups are not left behind in the data revolution and the advancement of new technologies. Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit the UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) has helped the world estimate real-time precipitation worldwide since 2005. AI is also being used to inform emergency planning, track typhoons, and manage and prevent floods, droughts, and storms. But AI's use is not only for disaster responses and prevention.  In a 2020 study, a group of researchers found that artificial intelligence can enable the accomplishment of 134 SDG targets across all the goals but it may also inhibit 59 targets. The study showed that society can benefit from AI in reducing extreme poverty, providing quality education, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, and supporting the creation of circular economies and smart cities that efficiently use their resources. However, the researchers also warned that if AI technology and big data are used in regions where ethical scrutiny, transparency, and democratic control are lacking, AI might enable nationalism, hate towards minorities and biased election outcomes. Our speaker in this episode, Jeanne Lim, Co-founder & CEO of beingAI, former CEO and CMO of Hanson Robotics, and co-developer of Sophia, the human-like robot, is one of the leading experts in pushing for a more compassionate artificial intelligence that can benefit people and our planet. Let’s hear from her. Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit the UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/. 

Science and technology intricately mesh together with society. You cannot see one without the other. However, transformational changes in science and technology do not always advance sustainable development and reduce inequality. More people have access to smartphones than clean water or clean sanitation in some countries. Artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies are growing, but so has the number of people living in hunger.  In this episode, we speak with the co-chairs of the Science, Technology, and Innovation or STI Forum--Mr. Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations and Mr. Kennedy Godfrey Gastorn, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Tanzania to the United Nations. They both shared their insights on advancing science and technology achievements while also addressing global challenges of inequality, digital divide, inclusion, climate change, to name a few issues, through collaboration among different actors in society. We need novel ways to mitigate emerging risks to scientific research and we also need to further the collaboration among scientists, researchers, and policymakers in an ongoing dialogue in networks of trust and transparency to address the global challenges.  The STI Forum of the United Nations provides this space for scientific cooperation and collaboration. It is also an important space for reflections on global development problems and discussions on how science, technology, and innovation can help contribute to approaches and solutions to achieve the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. To know more and to register for the upcoming STI Forum, please go to https://sdgs.un.org/tfm/STIForum2022.  Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit the UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/. 

Transferring science and research into policy and practice is a complex process, but failing to do so results in inequities and wasted resources. Finding appropriate mechanisms for the transfer of science and research into policies, programmes, and practice has become a major driver in finding approaches and solutions to achieving sustainable development. There has been a major push in the uptake of research and evidence-based technologies and funding also began mandating the use of activities that link research-generated evidence to policy and practice.   A solution to bridge the gap between science, policies, programmes, and practice is to use knowledge brokers, who are neutral intermediaries that function as an interface between the creators and users of knowledge. They are the human force behind knowledge transfer, finding, assessing, interpreting evidence, facilitating interaction, developing accessible formats, and identifying opportunities for collaboration and exchange between the producers and users of knowledge and spur enablers for behaviour change. Is knowledge brokering the missing link between science and changing behaviours for sustainable development and climate action? In this episode, we listen to Patrick van Weerelt, the Head of Office of the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC) Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development on the importance of knowledge brokering in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the role of the Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development in brokering knowledge between different actors and stakeholders who do not usually engage with each other. He shared lessons he learned in his years of experience in the areas of learning, training, and knowledge management for sustainable development and his insights into the gap between acquiring knowledge and changing behaviours.  Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/.  The opinions expressed in the SDG Learncast podcasts are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the opinions or views of UN SDG:Learn, its Joint Secretariat, and partners.

There is a tangible gap between the current climate science on the one hand and policymaking and practice on the other hand. There is also an evident need for user-driven and decision-driven co-produced knowledge on climate change and disaster risks. Science-stakeholder collaboration is becoming an increasingly common way to address mismatches between the knowledge needs of stakeholders and the research being done by both physical and social scientists. Dealing with climate emergency and disaster risks requires that we make climate and risk knowledge accessible to those who need them the most. But how?  In this episode, we speak with Ms. Loretta Hiebert Girardet, the Chief of Support and Monitoring of Sendai Framework Implementation Branch at the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) where she shares her expertise and experience in bridging the gap between science, policymaking, and practice and the communities who need to use the knowledge in their context. She also shares an important source of climate and risk knowledge, the Prevention Web platform where different actors and stakeholders can get contextualized knowledge in usable formats.   Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/.  The opinions expressed in the SDG Learncast podcasts are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the opinions or views of UN SDG:Learn, its Joint Secretariat, and partners.

Goals are an essential part of any action agenda. Together with setting targets, indicators, and timetables, goals can help measure progress, keep different actors and stakeholders on track, and allow for the assessment of achievement of any action agenda. However, conceptual questions need to be asked about whether they really work, what kind of incentives they create, when they are most effective in achieving their policy goals, and what unintended consequences they lead to, if any.  In this episode, we revisit the UN goal-setting as a policy tool for development, which guided the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our guest speaker is Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the President of Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), and also the host of the Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs, a monthly interview with renowned authors about their groundbreaking work in history, social justice, sustainable development in more. Jeffrey Sachs is a world-renowned economist and Columbia University professor and author of books on economics. Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/.  The opinions expressed in the SDG Learncast podcasts are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the opinions or views of UN SDG:Learn, its Joint Secretariat, and partners.

In a pre-Covid survey, conducted by the International Organization of Employers (IOE) together with the International Labour Organization (ILO), of about 500 companies in all regions, it found that companies across the board felt the challenge of hiring and retaining skilled workers--it's getting more difficult to find people with the rights and new graduates are not prepared for the current jobs. In fact, the skills employers needed four years ago are very much different to the skills they need now. In many countries, the education system is 10 years behind.  On the other hand, achieving sustainable development among big and small businesses globally can sometimes be seen as slow. Some companies jump into the sustainability train and introduce new ways of thinking and operating for a sustainable future. Others are still operating 'business as usual' in an old-fashioned way or operating in the margins that make them vulnerable, especially during crises.  In this episode, we hear valuable insights from Robert Marinkovich, adviser on sustainable development and climate policy portfolio, and Akustina Morni, senior adviser for the Asia employers group, at the International Organization of Employers on what can be done to address the skills gap and sustainability gap. IOE has more than 150 employer and business organization members, which have an impact on more than 50 million employees across the world.  Want to learn more about sustainable development and learning? Subscribe to SDG Learncast. Visit UN SDG:Learn website at www.unsdglearn.org to get the latest learning offers on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The transcript of the podcast is available at https://www.unsdglearn.org/podcast/.  The opinions expressed in the SDG Learncast podcasts are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the opinions or views of UN SDG:Learn, its Joint Secretariat, and partners.