IFLA Issues Statement on Evidence for Sustainable Development

From the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions:

[The] statement, agreed by the IFLA Governing Board, sets out the central role of libraries in supporting the collection, curation, and making available of evidence for sustainable development.

From the Statement:

As we approach the half-way point in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the need to enhance the way we make and implement development policies is clear. With the pandemic having slowed, halted, or even reversed progress in so many areas, there is little room for mistakes or wasting opportunities. Rather, we need to harness all possibilities open to us – including the power of digital collaboration shown by efforts to respond to COVID – and strive to make our actions as effective as possible. In particular, we have seen what can be achieved by using digital.

In achieving this, evidence will have a crucial role, all the more so given the complexity of the policy agenda that the Sustainable Development Goals set out. Tracking progress, understanding interconnections, making and disseminating innovation, and ensuring accountability are all impossible without the creation, curation, preservation and application of evidence, understood as including data, information and knowledge.

Open access, open science and open scholarship more broadly have a key role to play in this. Ensuring the publication and dissemination of information relevant to sustainable development under open licences facilitates maximum involvement in research, and its subsequent application. Yet equally necessary are structures and partnerships which allow for collaborations, and ensure that information is discoverable and usable.

Direct to the Complete Statement (628 words)

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Data Files, Libraries, News, Open Access, Preservation