Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
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John McArthur — 17 Rooms: A New Approach to Problem-Solving Across the Sustainable Development Goals

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Register here to attend.

Join J. Brian Atwood, Visiting Scholar in International and Public Affairs, and John McArthur, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution for a discussion of the Brookings report 17 Rooms: A new approach to spurring action for the Sustainable Development Goals.

The economic, social, and environmental challenges embedded throughout the world’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require many breakthroughs from business as usual. COVID-19 has only underscored the SDGs’ central message that the underlying problems are both interconnected and urgent, so new mindsets are required to generate faster progress on many fronts at once. 17 Rooms: A new approach to spurring action for the Sustainable Development Goals, describes an effort to innovate around the process of SDG problem-solving itself. As an experimental method for SDG convening and problem-solving, 17 Rooms aims to surface practical next steps within each goal while also stimulating productive connections across all goals.

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John W. McArthur is senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution. He is also a senior adviser to the United Nations Foundation and a board governor for the International Development Research Centre. He serves as a member of the UNICEF Advisory Group and of Policy Horizons Canada’s Deputy Minister Steering Committee. In 2018 he co-founded the “17 Rooms” initiative as a new approach to catalyzing action for the Sustainable Development Goals.