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SDG Advisor
Description/achievement of initiative

The overall objective of the SDG Advisor is to accelerate the adoption of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through ICT at local, regional and national levels especially in SIDS and LDCs . Specifically, the SDG Advisor will support SDG17 by providing the following computer aided services to SIDS and LDCs: • Status and Progress Checking towards SDGs • Recommendations of needed services based on the status• Launch a needed Service by using the SPACE computer aided planning platform.

Implementation methodologies

The SDG Advisor is being developed as an additional layer on top of a very powerful computer aided planning tool, called SPACE. The SDG Advisor basically provides the Status Checking and Service Recommendation capabilities and then passes the results to SPACE that conducts an extensive feasibility study of the needed service within 20 minutes and produces a strategic plan, a funding proposal and a working prototype of the selected service for the selected country. The results of the feasibility study are published in a Donor Portal for attracting funding sources and a free pilot project is initiated by the ICT4SIDS Partnership if it is mutually agreeable to all the parties involved. The Pilot Projects usually result in an ICT Hub that can be operational within a day in a chosen country. As stated previously, the overall objective of the SDG Advisor is to accelerate the adoption of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Samoa Pathway through ICT at local, regional and national levels especially in SIDS and LDCs . The SDG Advisor performs the following operations: • Status and Progress Checking: show how well the country is doing against specific SDGs and give a progress report • Recommendations: based on the status, recommend the ICT services needed (this recommender feature is based on a knowledgebase that heavily utilizes analysis performed by ITU-CISCO, Columbia-Ericcson, and others. • Launch a needed Service: go beyond recommendations and actually launch the needed digital services through the SPACE computer aided planning platform. The SPACE platform is currently focusing on SDG3 (Health) and SDG4 (Education). More services will be added later. The launched services are Samoa Pathway compliant ICT Hubs that support, Health, Education, Public Safety and Public Welfare services through ICT

Arrangements for Capacity-Building and Technology Transfer

Capacity building is automatically built in our methodology through the SPACE platform and ICT4SIDS Partnership. Specifically, we offer CITO certificates for high skilled workers through Harrisburg University. Details are available on ict4sids website http://ict4sids.com/training.html .

Coordination mechanisms/governance structure

The SDG Advisor is being developed through close collaboration with the ICt4SIDS Partnership that is based in Harrisburg (within an easy commute to UN HQs in NYC). The Director of the ICT4SIDS Partnership (Dr Umar) is also supervising the development of the SDG Advisor. Through the ICT4SIDS Partnership, we are also collaborating with 10 more partners consisting of healthcare providers, academic institutions, and the private sector.

Partner(s)

ICT4SIDS Partnership, NGE Solutions Inc, and Harrisburg University of Science and Technology
Progress reports
Goal 3
3.d - Strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks
Goal 4
4.3 - By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university
4.4 - By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
4.5 - By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
4.6 - By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
4.7 - By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
4.a - Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
4.c - By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States
Goal 17
17.6 - Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism
17.8 - Fully operationalize the technology bank and science, technology and innovation capacity-building mechanism for least developed countries by 2017 and enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology
17.9 - Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the sustainable development goals, including through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation
17.16 - Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries
17.17 - Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships

Data, monitoring and accountability
17.18 - By 2020, enhance capacity-building support to developing countries, including for least developed countries and small island developing States, to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts
17.19 - By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries
Feb 10, 2017
Publication of an announcement and a Brochure of the SDG Advisor
Feb 10, 2017
Completion of the SDG Advisor Website with detailed information and the ability for demonstrations and hands-on experiments
Feb 21-23, 2017
Presentation and Demonstration of the SDG Advisor at the Bahamas Conference (Feb 21-23, 2017)
Staff / Technical expertise
ICT4SIDS Partnership and Harrisburg University of Science and Technology
In-kind contribution
NGE Solutions, inc, staff is developing the SDG Advisor
Other, please specify
The SPACE Computer Aided Planning Environment that serves as the the platform on which the SDG Advisor resides

Basic information
Time-frame: January 1, 2017 - January1, 2030
Partners
ICT4SIDS Partnership, NGE Solutions Inc, and Harrisburg University of Science and Technology
Countries
Contact information
amjad umar, Director and Professor, ICT Programs, aumar@harrisburgu.edu , umar@amjadumar.com
United Nations