Eradicating poverty at centre of youth-led SDG ‘design sprint’

AMMAN — In the current Jordanian context, finding grassroots solutions to poverty-related challenges and coming up with ways to alleviate the harsh impact of increasing economic burdens is “a very pressing matter”, said Hasan Nabulsi, one of the organisers of the Global Goals Jam Amman, recently held in Amman with the support of the Zain Innovation Campus ZINC.

Conducted for the second year as part of the Global Goals Jam (GGJ) three-day design sprint happening in 70 cities around the world, the Amman edition was organised by the Global Shapers Community Amman Hub, in partnership with the Digital Society School Amsterdam and the United Nations Development Programme, Nabulsi said.

“This is a great opportunity to gather the youth to work and find solutions to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in our society, with this year focusing on the first SDG ‘No Poverty’, which seeks to end poverty in all its forms,” he told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

The only GGJ event in the region, this year’s event saw the participation of more than 25 participants working in the humanitarian and development sectors, who worked to identify common challenges and design innovative solutions to address the poverty challenges in Jordan, using the design thinking methodology.

“We decided to focus on poverty this year, given the importance of the goal for Jordan and the lack of youth activities and programmes that are clearly designed to work towards this goal,” said Qusai Abu Shanab, a member of the Global Shapers Amman Hub and one of the organisers of the event, adding “we hope the knowledge gained and the ideas generated during this event will help inspire action towards tackling poverty in the Kingdom”.

“This GGJ is just the start of a much longer conversation,” Nabulsi stressed, noting that, as part of its year-long work, the Global Shapers Amman Hub will continue supporting participants in developing their innovative ideas and turning them into concrete, applicable solutions, with the ultimate aim of presenting them as recommendations to relevant national institutions.

“We received an incredible feedback from participants on the importance of the design thinking methodology we introduced them to, which they found useful both for the GGJ itself and for their personal journey as well,” he continued.

“We are extremely proud to be the only country in the region to participate in the global event this year,” co-organiser Nour Al Gharaibeh told The Jordan Times, expressing hope to see this event “continue to serve as a platform for young people to share knowledge, build capacities and spark innovative solutions to problems faced by our community.” 

Elaborated at the 2015 Social Good Summit, where 193 world leaders committed to achieving 17 SDGs by 2030, the GGJ was officially launched a year later in the presence of then-vice president Joe Biden, Alec Baldwin and John Kerry, according to the GGJ website.

The UNDP and MediaLAB Amsterdam initiative seeks to design “realistic, actionable interventions” to implement these goals through interdisciplinary team work using design methods, the website added.