

17 Rooms
The Brookings Institution
17 Rooms is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur, senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan, senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 28, 2021 • 46min
Digital health tools for pandemic preparedness
In this eighth interview of the "17 Rooms'' podcast, Steve Davis and Pardis Sabeti discuss the uptake of participatory digital health tools for pandemic preparedness and response. Davis, senior strategy advisor and Interim China Country director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Sabeti, professor at Harvard University, moderated Room 3 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 3—on good health and well-being—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. "17 Rooms" is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3HdPQER "17 Rooms" is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Dec 23, 2021 • 42min
Digital cash transfer infrastructure
In this seventh interview of the "17 Rooms" podcast, Michael Faye and Minister Cina Lawson discuss building digital cash transfer infrastructure for emergency response and adaptive social protection. Faye, CEO and co-founder of GiveDirectly and Lawson, Minister of Digital Economy and Digital Transformation in Togo, moderated Room 1 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 1—on no poverty—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. "17 Rooms" is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3JbAX87 "17 Rooms" is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Dec 21, 2021 • 41min
A "breakthrough" agenda on climate finance
In this sixth interview of the "17 Rooms'' podcast, Amar Bhattacharya and John Podesta discuss a "breakthrough" agenda on climate finance, which is necessary to deliver on greater climate ambition and ensure synergy with the sustainable development agenda. Bhattacharya, senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution and Podesta, chair and founder of the Center for American Progress, moderated Room 13 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 13—on climate action—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. "17 Rooms" is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/33KnYKi "17 Rooms" is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Dec 16, 2021 • 47min
Investing in nature to protect and benefit people
In this fifth interview of the "17 Rooms" podcast, Rosina Bierbaum and Richard Florizone discuss near-term opportunities and challenges for scaling nature-based solutions. Bierbaum, professor at University of Maryland and University of Michigan, and Florizone, president at International Institute for Sustainable Development, moderated Room 15 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 15—on life on land—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. "17 Rooms" is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/30zGsfm "17 Rooms" is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Dec 14, 2021 • 46min
Business journalism as a lever for SDG accountability
In this fourth interview of the "17 Rooms'' podcast, Matthew Bishop and Raj Kumar discuss the role of business journalism in accelerating a data and reporting ecosystem to unlock private capital's contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals. Bishop, co-founder of the Social Progress Index, and Kumar, founding president and editor-in-chief at Devex, moderated Room 12 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 12—on consumption and production—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. "17 Rooms" is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3shO8hR "17 Rooms" is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Dec 9, 2021 • 42min
Optimizing the "True Cost/True Value" of food
In this third interview of the "17 Rooms'' podcast, Jane Maland Cady and Pradeep Prabhala discuss frameworks for investors to channel investments into the food system in a way that optimizes for the "True Cost/True Value" of food. Cady, program director at the McKnight Foundation, and Prabhala, partner at McKinsey & Company, moderated Room 2 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 2—on Zero Hunger—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. "17 Rooms" is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3oyjCOj "17 Rooms" is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Dec 7, 2021 • 45min
Metrics for job quality, mobility, and equity
In this second interview of the "17 Rooms'' podcast, Marcela Escobari and Ethan Rouen discuss elevating the "S" in ESG through a streamlined set of firm-level metrics that capture job quality and economic mobility. Escobari, senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Rouen, professor at Harvard Business School, moderated Room 8, alongside Otis Rolley of The Rockefeller Foundation during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. Room 8 is focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth. "17 Rooms" is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3piyjnO 17 Rooms is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Dec 2, 2021 • 48min
The fight against forced labor and modern slavery
In this first interview of the "17 Rooms" podcast, Kristen Leanderson Abrams and Carsten Stendevad discuss the role institutional investors can play in the fight against forced labor and modern slavery. Abrams, senior director for combatting human trafficking at the McCain Institute, and Stendevad, co-CIO for Sustainability at Bridgewater Associates, moderated Room 17 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 17—on Partnerships—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. 17 Rooms is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3d4Btpx 17 Rooms is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Nov 30, 2021 • 23min
Getting the world unstuck on the Sustainable Development Goals
"The world feels pretty stuck in taking on its biggest issues—things like poverty, climate change, inequality," says Brookings Senior Fellow John McArthur in this debut episode of "17 Rooms," a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the people driving them. In this new podcast, McArthur—who directs the Center for Sustainable Development at Brookings, and co-host Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation, talk with thought leaders and practitioners who are pushing to make change across all 17 of the SDGs as part of the 17 Rooms initiative, where people from diverse backgrounds meet in their own "Rooms," one for each of the SDGs, to identify concrete actions they can take over the next 12-18 months toward the Goals. In this episode, Khan and McArthur preview the show, discuss the 17 Rooms process, and introduce themselves, explaining why they are excited about this work. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3D0Zk3T 17 Rooms is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Nov 15, 2021 • 55sec
Introducing 17 Rooms, a podcast about the people driving a new approach for the Sustainable Development Goals
Welcome to 17 Rooms, a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is part of the 17 Rooms initiative, where diverse participants meet in their own "Rooms," one for each of the SDGs, to identify concrete actions they can take over the next 12-18 months toward the Goals. In the podcast, co-hosts John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation, interview Room Moderators to explore the issues and learn more about the personalities pushing them forward. Stay tuned for the first episode of 17 Rooms, airing on November 30. New episodes will be released on Tuesdays and Thursdays, one for each of the 17 rooms and 17 Sustainable Development Goals. 17 Rooms is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Episodes will be available on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at @policypodcasts on Twitter.


