Spreading the SDGs at country level
IMAGINE 2030 is an initiative of the UN team in Bosnia and Herzegovina, designed to promote the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Global Agenda through the use of “strategic foresight” and the innovative and interactive SDG consultations tool with elements and the dynamics of social games through which the participants create together, and in a very democratic manner, find imaginative solutions around a selected sustainable development goal or a specific task or a problem.
To date, over 1,200 people were engaged through the SDG workshops Information gathered include negative and positive associations about the past; negative and positive associations about the present; their visions for the future; their perspectives on what key societal values BiH needs to strive for; and information on key actions and elements that need to be in place to achieve the SDGs. Additionally, citizens prioritized SDGs and targets and problem-solved SDG targets adjusted to the local context.
In the process, citizens have elaborated hundreds of brilliant ideas and have identified numerous accelerators for sustainable development. The people behind the project would like to upscale the tool globally. Adaptation would be very simple for any country or organization that would be interested to try the approach and engage citizens with the SDGs directly. Citizen participation is at the core of the sustainable development and citizens need to have a voice in shaping policies and priorities for development and determine their future together with decision makers.
The project’s core is that everyone engaged through the workshops left with clear understanding about the complexity of the task ahead and understanding that the change needs to start with each individual. Though this initiative, citizens are ultimately being empowered to co-create the future with all other relevant stakeholders and ‘nudge’ them to embrace responsibility to also co-change that imagined future.