The Posner Center was proud to be Denver’s host organization for Goalmakers 2020, a nation-wide initiative to bring together practitioners from NGOs, companies, foundations, and universities to advance the #SustainableDevelopmentGoals (#SDGs) given the severe setbacks around the world from Covid-19. Throughout 4Q2020, roundtable discussions and public events centered on individual SDGs were held in seven cities across the U.S. 
Here in Denver, we focused on SDGs #7, #13 and #15. We hosted two roundtables discussions on:
- distributed energy resources and accelerating the use of renewable energy in low- and middle-income countries (Affordable & Clean Energy – SDG 7)
- the equitable use of nature-based solutions to climate change in low- and middle-income countries (Life on Land-SDG15 and Climate Action-SDG13)
Thought leadership from these roundtables contributed to a national conversation around the SDGs and culminated in a #Goalmakers2020 National Forum to highlight cross-cutting themes and needed action.
Just released is the 2020 Goalmakers Report that summarizes this initiative, including the 13 Goalmaker City roundtable discussions across the U.S. (including the two in Denver hosted by the Posner Center) with 207 participants and the 2-day virtual national forum that engaged global development practitioners around cross-cutting themes:
- Ensuring a Just Recovery
- Feminist Leadership
- Natural Capital and Sustainability
- Disruption and Leapfrogging to a Better Future
- Effective Partnerships and Social Capital
- Movement Building
- Next Generation Leadership for Global Development
Some recommended areas of focus highlighted by our Denver Goalmakers in the report include:
- Developing a workforce that can support clean energy by co-creating locally-adapted training programs that lead to jobs, including hands-on training for young people.
- Engaging local communities around advocacy for energy efficiency.
- Mobilizing financing from philanthropy and other sources to scale up small renewable projects that can achieve economies of scale.
- Investing in solutions and programs that provide for an equitable transition to renewable energy.
- Bringing government and policymakers together with the private sector to facilitate utility and distributed energy resource development financing, shared experiences, and technology and information transfers. Implement a GAVI-type approach for facilitating an effective distributed, renewable energy development business model.
- Strengthening indigenous land and forest rights around the planet and creating equitable, trustworthy partnerships with indigenous organizations in need of resources (financial, technical, and/or advocacy resources).
- Requiring that top-down approaches that allow large corporations, organizations, and NGOs to provide money and resources for communities be paired with bottom-up approaches that bring local community leaders to the table to advocate for what they need.
- Scaling and aligning sustainable nature-based solutions to climate change with investments in local livelihoods.
- Incentivizing and investing more in the efficiency of agricultural production and land management.
Read the full report at https://bit.ly/38oXYDG.
#Goalmakers2020
#CollaborateForImpact
#SDGs #GlobalGoals #sdggoals #sdgs2030
Thanks to our Denver Goalmaker Partners
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