Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goals
The United Nations initiative, established in 2015, brings nations together to achieve the goals by 2030 with a strong ethos of inclusivity and helping those furthest behind to the front. The 17 goals fall under 5 themes, the 5 P’s, People, Planet, Peace, Partnership and Prosperity and have a high level of interconnectivity. The goals have a strong ethos of inclusivity and a philosophy of leaving no nation behind and helping those furthest behind to the front.
Local authorities have a key role to play to creating awareness about the 17 goals, with a large outreach into communities and providing a wide range of services there is an opportunity for strong leadership in this area. Which is why, in September 2020, Meath County Council committed to embracing the 17 SDG goals. Striving to create awareness, achieve targets and integrate the SDGs into organizational culture.
The Trim URBACT Integrated Action Plan aims to build upon the good work already undertaken in Trim and sets out actions to integrate Sustainable Development Goals on a local level. This Action Plan has been created through a participative approach that is based on strong partnerships between Meath County Council, the private sector, community groups and civil society. This participative approach was enabled through the creation of a local body, the URBACT Local Group, which comprised of local citizens and community groups. The URBACT Local Group were crucial partners in co-producing the Integrated Action Plan and in identifying actions to be pursued that will allow the localisation of Sustainable Development Goals within Trim.
Stage 1 of the project focused on diagnosis and visioning work. With the support of an URBACT network Lead Expert, the ULG identified work already going on that could be linked to the SDGs. Following this, the group looked to fixing priorities and targets for the future.
Stage 2 of the project focuses on developing broad-scope missions for the town, locally adapted SDG targets, and the planning of actions which will achieve the vision of Trim created by the ULG which are in line with the 2030 Agenda.
This will be achieved through designing an Integrated Action Plan through a participative process to implement SDGs locally within in the town of Trim through tangible projects.
The project benefitted from peer-to-peer learning from the lead city Tallinn, lead experts and the other 18 partner cities facing similar challenges, with Meath County Council have been represented at numerous trans-national meetings to foster connections and exchange ideas. The project was supported and co-financed by the ERDF and URBACT.