In an era of several ongoing global crises, there is a pressing need to empower municipalities in their transformation towards a sustainable society. Recognising this, the SDSN Northern Europe secretariat and Nordregio have initiated a pioneering project involving six Nordic municipalities.
“Supporting municipalities in their transformation towards sustainable development is an important priority for us. Therefore, we wanted to start a pilot project to see if the SDG Impact Assessment Tool could be a helpful tool in supporting municipalities contributing to achieving the SDGs,” says Martin Eriksson, Network Manager of SDSN Northern Europe.
SDSN Northern Europe has been instrumental in the development of the SDG Impact Assessment Tool, which is a free, online, learning tool that visualises the results from a self-assessment of how an activity, organisation or innovation affect the SDGs. Collaborating with Nordregio, a member of the network, SDSN Northern Europe reached out to municipalities in the Nordic region, seeking participants to test the SDG Impact Assessment Tool.
Six Nordic municipalities — Botkyrka, Korsholm, Strängnäs, Strömstad, Kungälv, and Tjörn — expressed their interest and now join the project to try out the SDG Impact Assessment Tool with support from the SDSN Northern Europe secretariat. The municipalities will receive support and guidance from the tool’s developers and will also get the chance to share experiences and learn from each other. The municipality of Strängnäs, which has already used the tool, will provide advice and insights to help others.
The aim of the initiative is to gather different examples and experiences to showcase how the SDG Impact Assessment Tool can be effectively used in various municipal projects. Feedback on how the tool works in municipality processes will be collected through online meetings and a survey.
“We highly value the feedback that the participating municipalities can provide,” says Martin Eriksson and continues, “our aim is to gather the collective knowledge and best practices into a guide that will empower municipalities across the Nordic region, and perhaps elsewhere, to effectively use the tool and align their operations with the SDGs.”
Through this collaboration and by embracing the SDG Impact Assessment Tool, these six Nordic municipalities are taking the lead in assessing SDG impacts of their operations.
