Negotiating Sustained Action for Sustainable Development – Application to Students in South Sudan
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Author | Frederick Mugisha |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12476 |
Negotiating Sustained Action for Sustainable
Development –Application to Students in
South Sudan
Frederick Mugisha
United Nations Development Programme
Abstract
The global agenda on sustainable development will require a process to inspire individual and organization SDG-related
actions and commit to report progress on until 2030. It will be powerful for example to know how actions of university stu-
dents will change as they become leaders, and how universities will align their actions to the challenges of communities and
governments. This commentary characterizes a 5-stage process to inspire individual, collective and institutional actions for sus-
tainable development. In 2016, over 500 students in seven universities in South Sudan underwent the first four stages. They
reviewed milestones and took the journey into the future to 2030 and 2063. They articulated the future South Sudan
they want as ‘one that is peaceful, inclusive and prosperous, with strong institutions that prioritize the interest of her citizens’.
They then prioritized the SDGs that resonate to that future as Goals 16, 4 and 1 in that order. Finally they pledged to ‘under-
take inter-university dialogue, research and innovation for Sustainable Development’. In 2017, the leadership of universities
and students will commit to SDG-actions and to report on progress as a basis for sharing and learning each year until the year
2030 when the agenda is concluded.
1. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development
With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Devel-
opment, the international community demonstrated its
renewed global commitment and expanded the ambitions
for development with the wide ranging goals to be achieved
under this framework. The agenda will require a process to
inspire individual and organization SDG-related actions and
commit to report progress on a continuous basis until 2030.
This commentary characterizes a 5-stage process to inspire
individual, collective and institutional actions for sustainable
development with a focus on university students. It will be
powerful for example to know how actions of university stu-
dents will change as they graduate and become leaders in
government and in the private sector, and how universities
will align their actions to the challenges of communities and
governments in their localities and beyond. For instance, uni-
versities will hold the promise to reach government depart-
ments, non-governmental organizations and communities.
When these linkages are formalized and become continuous,
their impacts will be much wider.
2. Data
Students –400 male and 106 female –in seven universities
across the nation were taken through an intensive exercise
in which they envisioned the future South Sudan they want
and which of the Sustainable Development Goals speak to it
that they recommend ought to be prioritized (UNDP,
2016a). In subsequent exercises, it is important that we aim
for 60/40 –not more than 60 of one sex and not less than
40. They also pledged action for sustainable development
(see Table 1). Three of the universities are based in Juba,
the capital city, while the others are in other towns outside
of the capital city. All the towns have experienced some
form of insecurity or armed conflict at least once in the past
4 years.
3. The approach to enable SDG Action
The evolving approach –the SDG Vision Exercise –involves
five stages (UNDP, 2016a). The 1st stage is to present the key
milestones of the nation through the journey of a represen-
tative person that resonate with the audience. In this applica-
tion, six key milestones and events were chosen overtime
depicting Poni’s transformation. Poni represents an ordinary
South Sudanese (see Figure 1). The first key milestone is
Operation Lifeline Sudan (Karim et al., 1999), which is proba-
bly the largest relief effort undertaken in the country’s
history in 1989. It is the time she was born. The second mile-
stone is the inaugural human development report (UNDP,
2016b) in 2016 that cast the challenges of the nation
through a transformative lens and dared to dream. The
report laid a foundation for the future. The third milestone is
the agreement (IGAD, 2015) on the resolution of conflict in
the Republic of South Sudan with the focus on building insti-
tutions, the economy, and reconciliation. It is at this point
that Poni’s children begin to have hope. The fourth mile-
stone is the global agenda on sustainable development
©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2017) 8:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12476
Global Policy Volume 8 . Issue 4 . November 2017
582
Practitioner Commentary
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