A better world by 2030
In 2015 the United Nations announced a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs).
These form a plan of action to transform the world into a fairer, healthier and more sustainable place by 2030.
mySociety’s projects actively work towards several of these goals.
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels |
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16.5 Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms |
Our Freedom of Information software makes the contracts between authorities and suppliers public, while one feature of our Parliamentary Monitoring software is to help track asset registers. | |
16.6 Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels |
All our tools help enable this goal to some extent: our Parliamentary Monitoring tools, our Freedom of Information tool Alaveteli, and our report-making tool FixMyStreet. | |
16.7 Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels |
WriteToThem makes it easier for citizens to have input to the parliamentary process. Sites based on Pombola, and TheyWorkForYou in the UK, ensure that citizens can follow and understand what is happening as decisions are made in Parliament. | |
16.10 Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements |
Alaveteli, our Freedom of Information software, gives access to information from public institutions to people all over the world. | |
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development |
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17.17 Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships |
mySociety’s partnership model enables the pooling of experience and resources with organisations and individuals across the world. | |
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages |
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3.6 By 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents |
FixMyStreet provides a reporting platform which enables citizens to report dangerous features in their neighbourhood quickly and simply; its spin-off Collideoscope actively collates information about accidents and near-misses, feeding the data to councils and town planners so that they can improve unsafe areas. | |
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls |
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5b Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women |
Our research programme is exploring ways to develop and implement gender-neutral routes to political and civic engagement, while our project Gender Balance addresses the fact that there is no universal dataset on the number of women in parliaments around the world. | |
Reduce inequality within and among countries |
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10.2 By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status |
All the work that we and our partners do provides channels for engagement and empowerment at a digital level, which reduces barriers normally associated with in-person engagement. | |
The potential is there for ever greater strides forward
Additionally, our software has the potential underpin new digital tools that will contribute to many more of the goals.
Our continued work in developing new tools and components for Parliamentary Monitoring sites will enable citizens all around the world to keep a close eye on exactly what their politicians are doing — in each and every one of these goals.
Tools such as WriteToThem then allow people to lobby their politicians; the latter publishes those conversations in the public domain so that promises can be shared and their originators held accountable.
FixMyStreet can be repurposed for any project that sends reports to the people responsible, and also publishes them online for maximum transparency.