Considering the importance of public access to information as a way to protect fundamental freedoms in relation to national legislation and international agreements (Target 16.10), the actions taken in this project are aimed to raise awareness of the importance of SDGs to French and French speaking countries libraries as well as to advocate for the integration of libraries as a relevant stakeholder in the discussions in regards to the adaptation of indicators of the National Voluntary Reports. This project also contributes to enhancing a multi-stakeholder Global Partnership where libraries plays a crucial role (Target 17.16)

In regards to the demands of a construction of multi-stakeholder global partnerships for sustainable development to reinforce the exchange of knowledge and expertise, as stated in the Target 17.16, a consortium of four French institutions (ENSSIB, CFIBD, BPI and ABF) created the Agenda 2030 and French Speaking Libraries Strategy, which resulted from the French national adaptation of the International Advocacy Programme of the IFLA (International Federation of Libraries Associations and Institutions) and training session to reproduce or appropriate this scheme by the French Speaking Countries. The Agenda 2030 and French Speaking Libraries Strategy aims to be part of the discussions of each National Voluntary Reports when it comes to the recognition of libraries as a relevant stakeholder in the community development and a focal point in the national decision-making process.
By framing these actions in the construction of multi-stakeholder partnerships where libraries might have a huge potential, the French Speaking Libraries strategy has three objectives: 1) to raise awareness to local, national, university and other types of libraries of SDGs as a framework of action. As a result, libraries could reinforce their role as an Important stakeholder in the development of their own communities by using the SDGs, both as a source of inspiration and a standard frame of actions already taken; 2) to make an inventory of actions already taken by French and French speaking libraries. That is the reason why the consortium has profited from scholar and professional events in order to encourage other professionals and libraries agents to participate in workshops and conferences with the objective of having a catalogue of actions potentially framed by the SDGs; 3) to publicly advocate for the inclusion of libraries into the French Speaking National Strategies concerning the SDGs. In order to do so, agents from the four members’ consortium designed and created a brochure and other communication instruments, such as a website, in order to facilitate the political projection of the importance of libraries actions concerning SDGs. By creating these graphic elements, these agents Implemented an advocacy action in regards to the European Parliament, French diplomats in international organisations and United Nations (UNECE Regional Forum) institutions.

This Strategy was created by a consortium of four institutions (ENSSIB, CFIBD, BPI and ABF), supported by the International Advocacy Program of the IFLA, and with a strong rapport with the actions taken by the AIFBD. The strategy defined two targets: 1) In regards to French Speaking librarians, two actions are established on them: raising awareness actions and cataloguing. The first type of action was based on the multiples workshops in professional spaces with an interesting interactive approach. 2) Considering public advocacy, government officials from European, French and United Nations Institutions.

The implementation of this project consisted on four phases:
1) Defining a team: Based in the sustainable development interest group existing in the IFLA, an informal consortium of four French institutions was created (CFIBD, BPI, ENSSIB and the ABF) as a result of previous cooperation actions in regards to the aforementioned topic, but in spite of their different institutional cultures. These four institutions actions are complemented with the French Speaking libraries association (AIFBD) actions and with Belgian and Swiss libraries. As a result, they all agreed on the importance of collecting information (phase 2: data collection process) about French speaking libraries sustainable actions.
2) Data collection process. The consortium created the Agenda 2030 Survey, whose data collection aimed to enlarge the scale of potentials respondents. The survey was launched twice: in 2017, through the ABF network (30 French libraries respondents and 150 actions were collected) and through the AIFBD network (60 French Speaking Countries libraries answered and 200 actions were collected) making a total of 90 French Speaking Libraries participated in the survey. With this collection, the consortium started to create a data basis of actions who could have an impact to the SDGs. The databasis was completed with the detailed actions presented on the Enssib’s Global Project Platform, and “Bibliothèques dans la ville” Initiative from the Bpi.
3) Internalising the SDGs. This process aimed not only to the local librarians but also the member of the consortium themselves. For the latter, this works implied the study of SDGs to a better communication to potential stakeholders. After this internalisation, the consortium used examples of the list and pedagogic sources to raise awareness and encourage the internalisation of the SDGs as a standard framework for French Speaking library actions. These actions are taken in different spaces such as in workshops and congresses and by the creation of physical instruments. As a matter of fact, in 2017 and 2018, the consortium participated in seven activities from the ABF events, 3 conferences from IFLA events, four workshops to assess the serious game and 7 articles in specialised media. Regarding the instruments, the consortium created a web page, where relevant information and self-training documents are shared. They also created a serious game to help librarians raise awareness on the challenges of SDG’s and their role in reaching the objectives of agenda 2030. The serious game is available from the website, in French and in English.
4) Public advocacy Actions: After the publication of an interactive guide for self-training, and the construction of the data basis, the consortium has presented the brochure to the French Embassy to the UN and other government officials and participated in 5 conferences in regards to the sustainable development (one Regional Forum on Sustainable Development in Genève and one side diplomatic meeting in New York). Regarding the instruments, a brochure containing all the actions inventoried in the previous activities and a postal card to European parliamentarians, ambassadors, government officials and French Local Politicians were produced.

In the collecting data phase, we collected an important part of the information in two librarian associations networks: the ABF one and the AIFBD one. Through the first one, 30 French Libraries participated and 150 development actions were catalogued. On the other hand, through the AIFBD network, 60 Francophone Libraries (50% Belgian, 25% French, 15% Swiss, 10% other Francophone libraries, especially French Speaking African Countries Libraries) and more of 200 actions were collected. As a whole, 90 French Speaking Libraries and 350 actions have been included in the data basis. The most important output of this phase is the creation of a French Librarian Data Basis, published in our website and our brochure.
In regards to the internalising processes, the consortium presented the results of its strategy in the French libraries network in different conferences, workshops and articles. More than 200 librarians were reached out by this activity of dissemination of results.
Considering physical deliverables, the consortium has created a serious game, which could be downloaded in English and French, but could also be adapted to any national reality when included local examples. After presentation of his game in the IFLA network, and in the AIFBD network, some librarians from different countries expressed their wish to adapt the game to their country. As an example, after this presentation, the Belgium libraries association decided to launch a survey to collect actions and adapt the game.
The creation of a French Speaking Countries Brochure was a milestone for the consortium public advocacy plan because it makes visible the actions taken by the partners. In this regard, the consortium had seven political meetings, including the UNECE Regional Forum in 2018, one diplomatic meeting with professional staff of the French Embassy at New York and other embassies, one participation in the Public Libraries 2020 (European Initiative on the topic) and official meetings with six different European parliamentarians. The brochure has been sent to all French European Parliamentarians.
In spite of the perspective of showing this strategy as very specific to the European French Speaking World, it is important to highlight the integration and the cooperative rapport among partners. The centripetal relationship and the amount of reciprocal knowledge among similar libraries could be a source of inspiration to other type of libraries at the same level. In the long term, these actions may encourage libraries and librarians to empower themselves as relevant actors in local development whereas helping others to use the library as a way to empower vulnerable populations. On the other side, these vulnerable populations will gradually transform libraries, into spaces of self-constitution and individual empowerment.
Transforming the SDGs in an internalised mutual network not only works for libraries themselves and communities around them but also a way to Improve national development strategies. Being one of the most important source of information, libraries social engagement can constitute an important asset in regards to the construction of better development indicators, which in the long term, will give better responses to crucial social problems.

The most important enabling factor of this project is the centripetal relationship between librarians in the French speaking domain. This asset was the root of the easy networking capacities building among different institutional cultures in the creation of the project. Diversity comes at stake when it comes to institutional culture in this project because the consortium is compounded by a university (Enssib), a national library (BPI), a National Association of Librarians (ABF) and an organisation whose objective is internationalise French speaking Libraries (AIFBD). However, given the multiple memberships of the staff responsible for the project and even the participants in the professional events, the overlapping approach of scholar interests and professional concern makes the inclusion of SDGs as an element of the professional discussions was easily integrated a topic of interest among them. What is more, more of the half of the members are partially connected to the Enssib because of being alumni of this school.
The existence of a French Speaking Caucus in the IFLA was also an advantage to spill these actions over to other French Speaking Countries but also the French libraries themselves. It is important to highlight that French Speaking Libraries strongly based their actions and institutional connections not only on mutual professional interest but on language sharing. Therefore, the existence of the International Advocacy Program of the IFLA is a resounding advantage in terms of financial resources for the project. Language was also important as a pedagogic resource for librarians to internalise the importance to frame their actions using the SDGs. Through the participation of training sessions and interactive workshops as part of professional meetings, the technical language of SDGs was easily apprehended by librarians in terms and examples they could grasp without so much effort.
This enabling conditions helped to overcome the constrains to the Implementation of the project. One of the most important was the lack of information of what libraries have made so far and could be of interest to the project. However, capacity building training sessions and interactive workshops worked as a mechanism to gradually raise awareness from more librarians (only in 2018, 6 training sessions were arranged, scaling the capacity building up to more 300 librarians for more 12 French Speaking Countries according to the 2018 French Advocacy Plan Review). This constraint was also supplied by the creation of a data basis, which has included more than 193 intersected experiences of libraries and SDGs and a brochure, used for the advocacy actions with government officials afterwards.

Information is a key component of the decision making process. Libraries play an essential role as an important source of information for better locally-rooted policies. Transposing actions to internalise SDGs into the daily work of librarians can help in the co-construction of better indicators for national adaptations, combining local expertise with responses to global issues. Since libraries are usually the centre of community networks through participatory activities, they constitute themselves as relevant stakeholders in the local adaptation of global strategies issued by the SDGs, while also integrating new generations and vulnerable groups into the discussions on the adoption of global policies. Gender issues, migration flux integration and other transversals issues are topics often treated in libraries and a consequence of this intersection is not difficult to imagine certain good practises who could help to better leverage the national wide strategies which lacks of local community approach.
The impact of the Agenda 2030 and French Libraries Strategy is resounding in the French Speaking World, but also in other linguistic contexts. The capacity building sessions were not compounded by French librarians only but also by French Speaking librarians, for instance French speaking librarians from Africa. In those countries, the challenges in regards to development are highly relevant in the daily agenda and the fact of librarians being engaged in these strategies could be an interesting asset of this proposal, due to the central role of libraries in the decision making process and as a stakeholder in the community development process.
The implementation of this strategy does not demand huge financial resources, neither the actions of analysis of the actions concerning the SDGs, nor the advocacy plan. Having started without any quantitative data, the gradual construction of elements was made by using simple informatics instruments with no cost attached to technical requirements or human resources specialized. In fact, these actions are not different of which librarians usually do in their daily work.

Why is it important to engage libraries in the Implementation of the SDGs in local communities? Libraries are at the centre of the communities as a trusted local actor due to the fact of being in the intersection of action and knowledge. This intersection can help to construct better rooted local policies to strengthen the intention of global partnerships, based on expertise and the exchange of technical knowledge, as stated in the target 17.16. Consequently, the better appropriated the indicators, the better the implementation in national contexts. Libraries can contribute on the construction of more apprehensible indicators in order to perform in the context of Implanting better community appropriated strategies, providing elements of continuity and resilience to these proposals.
This intersection is also constituted by the idea of the library as the meeting place for cultures and the space of integration of vulnerabilised populations, such as women, indigenous people or migrants. Libraries are the intersection of two different spheres of action: in their walls, there is an overlapping stance of global/local encounter which libraries can help articulate and to lessen the resonance explosion of this voice. Libraries are not displayer of opportunities for development, they are fully integrated in the empowering process of others.
The scheme of cooperation of this project is easily replicable, especially in contexts where the interconnections of libraries agents are created by professional associations and scholar organisations. The technical requirements and the human resource do not differ of those who any librarian can have in their daily duties. As a matter of fact, Instruments are not difficult to apprehend; it is a matter of dedicating some time to express others and to integrate the force of their activities.

Website: https://agenda2030bibfr.wixsite.com/agenda2030bib
Databasis: https://agenda2030bibfr.wixsite.com/agenda2030bib/temoignages
Serious Game: https://agenda2030bibfr.wixsite.com/agenda2030bib/jeu
Agenda 2030 and French Libraries:
https://agenda2030bibfr.wixsite.com/agenda2030bib/brochure