“Our challenge was to encourage local and national businesses in PNG [Papua New Guinea] to amplify and coordinate their individual efforts to join the global movement supporting the SDGs just like the other 9,400 companies in 160 countries that had already done.”

A recent Impakter essay uses Papua New Guinea’s efforts as a case study for how the United Nations can work with businesses to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Papua New Guinea is one of the few countries in the world that did not achieve any of the UN’s earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With the second anniversary of the SDGs approaching, the UN is looking to businesses as an engine for growth that can help achieve the SDGs and drive long-term economic growth and human development in PNG.

To make this possible, the UNDP partnered with the Business Council of PNG to form a Business Coalition for the SDGs, which will mobilize private sector support for the SDGs. They have also partnered with SocialCops to quantitatively track the impact of their work on SDG progress in real time.

Read more about Papua New Guinea’s recent #BusinessCoalition4SDGs Conference here.

This partnership resulted in a facilitated exchange in June 2017 involving … SocialCops, a leading data analytics group from India. This is now being followed up by the development of a live dashboard that will map the contribution of businesses (small and large) in PNG to the SDGs, with information on numbers of people reached and support provided.

We are excited and proud to be working on this initiative!

Interested in learning more? Read the full article here about how public-private partnerships can help spur greater impact and drive progress toward the SDGs.

Photo Credit: UNDP/Freya Morales