A Swiss startup boosts engagement from world leaders to municipalities

The Perception Change Project (PCP) under the Office of the Director General of the United Nations Office in Geneva started an initiative to create a focal point for engagement on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Developed by GovFaces, the SDG Stories platform created the first block of conversations between high level leaders, experts and key figures on topics related to the SDGs. The theme for the "Block 1" started in December 2016 was to get leaders to present the SDGs for children and youth on 17 development themes.

As Alexis Bourgeois from GovFaces explains, SDG Stories ultimate objective is to provide a framework for engagement on Sustainable Development Goals for people of all ages and knowledge levels to enter in a discussion on these issues at the local, regional and global levels. Communications on the SDGs is growing but it is very scattered. Many agencies, organizations and governments have their own initiatives which are strong but the communications and associated networks very often exist in a silo, "pushing information" which is becoming less and less effective.  

SDG Stories fills an important gap providing one digital space on Internet where SDG leaders, experts and innovators are brought in to facilitate engagement and dialogue. For the Geneva based startup, the key words are coherence, scalability and cost efficiency. This matters because if there is no central "engagement focused" communications space that can reach from the level of a President or United Nations Secretary General to a City Counsellor, then it is hard to imagine truly global buy-in at all levels for the Global Agenda. 

Launched in December 2016, SDGStories gathers today 350 leaders, experts and innovators from 143 organizations from 62 countries among which one can find names like: 

• Paul Polman, CEO Unilever CEO
• Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Laureat
• Rajeev Suri, CEO of Nokia  
• Josh Bayliss, CEO of Virgin Group, 
• Bertrand Piccard, Solar Impulse
• Michael Møller, Director General of the United Nations Office at Geneva
• Fabiola Gianotti, Director General of CERN
• Gro Harlem Brundtland, Former Prime Minister of Norway
• Tarja Halonen, Former President of Finland).

GovFaces has started promoting a solution to help towns communicate with citizens. The startup founded in 2014 has already implanted platforms on different levels 

• Local: Portsmouth England 2015 (UK elections)
• National: Switzerland 2015 (privacy data protection and transparency campaign)
• Regional: European Union 2014 (European elections)
• International: Geneva 2016/2017 (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) 

The original idea for GovFaces was to improve engagement between citizens and governments. The startup has now proven the applicability of the tool and methodology at all levels of governance from the local to the international. The next step is to take the lessons learned and begin implementing the platform more broadly in Switzerland at the municipality level (http://www.helvetic.govfaces.com/). The startup plans also to explore markets such as the United States while continuing to provide strong value to such global conversations as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

(ES)