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Paper short abstract:

Five years after authoring The Missing Pillar, Nordicity discusses the relevance of the SDG framework for bridging the gap between culture and development, in light of the updated Missing Foundation report.

Paper long abstract:

Five years ago, the British Council partnered with Nordicity to examine culture’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals. Through a mapping exercise, Nordicity identified the 11 SDGs targeted by the British Council’s programming and produced 8 thematic case studies (through specialist advisors), leading to the Missing Pillar report.

The core objectives were to understand how a wide range of approaches to arts and cultural programming contribute to the SDGs, and to illustrate the difficulty in evidencing impact of longitudinal arts and cultural investment. We examined the potential entry points to developing a sustainable framework for programme design and implementation, and to enable an easier aggregation of evaluative data to accommodate donor requirements.

We developed recommendations for incorporating the SDGs into British Council programme development, as well as M&E processes to measure its contribution going forward. The report also encouraged the wider culture sector to adopt the language of the SDGs in hopes of mainstreaming advocacy and standardised monitoring across the cultural sector. Of deep interest was to consider how our findings may contribute to wider cultural policy agendas, providing a space for stronger engagement and collaboration, and ensuring culture was at the Agenda 2030 table.

The follow up Missing Foundation report, authored by edgeandstory, analysed the progress towards these recommendations. In this presentation, Nordicity dialogues with the Missing Foundation to discuss the pragmatic use of the SDG framework, as encountered in our work in the past five years, to build more sustainable and systemic alliances with development policy makers.