Fishbowl 1+1=17? Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals

by Angelina Davydova

The first online fishbowl session of the prE-Summit, aimed to create a different vision for partnerships. It asked what the world could look like if it were defined by and looked at using the paradigms of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Participants came up with ideas for new structures and modes of cooperation that could replace the traditional understanding of development (e.g. as a transfer of money and resources from the Global North to the Global South). They suggested supporting ideas from the bottom up as well as grassroots solutions, connecting innovators across countries, working on greater transparency and accountability, and including a focus on the SDGs in the post-COVID recovery plans. “I have more questions after the session than I had before, and even though I heard different perspectives, I also got a lot of inspiration for ideas and initiatives – it was great to see so many overlapping issues and to see the future of new partnerships”, said one of the participants towards the end of the event.

You can re-watch the public part of the fishbowl here.

Facilitating the virtual fishbowl was David Patrician. The session was designed by Susanne Salz who also appeared as an expert in the fishbowl, as she is not only a GDL member, but also leading the project ‘Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for the 2030 Agenda‘. If you are interested in the topic, she also wrote this blog entry.

Joining her on the virtual podium were:

Joseph D’Cruz

Joseph D’Cruz is Senior Advisor for Strategy and Planning to the Administrator of UNDP. He supports UNDP’s senior leadership in the development and implementation of corporate strategies, processes and initiatives to deliver the organization’s mandate and objectives.

Marieke de Wal

Since 2014, Marieke de Wal is managing director of the Partnerships Resource Centre at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. She currently works together with the GDL on developing a new strategy. Other projects of her include Promoting Effective Partnering (PEP), a knowledge sharing initiative, inspired by the inquiry ‘what will it take to unleash the partnering potential for the SDGs?’.

The fishbowl was kicked-off by two GDLTalks which you can revisit here.

Graphic Recording by Susanne Kitlinski