DEVCOM. The new logo of the Development Communication department of Xavier University bears the colors of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and its theme for this academic year, “Transforming our World through Communication for Development.”
By Alyssa Michelle R Viado and Stephen J Pedroza
World leaders from 193 United Nations member-countries drew together last year in New York for the largest summit in history to craft the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a roster of ambitious aims across the three dimensions of sustainable development — economic progress, social transformation, and environmental sustainability.
The 17 SDGs encompass 169 smaller targets, with “ending poverty in all its forms everywhere” at the frontline. The goals include ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education, achieving gender equality, fighting hunger, combating climate change, and promoting peace and justice, among others.
Aside from being the updated version of the Millennium Development Goals after its culmination last year, the UN considers the SDGs “people-centered, universal and transformative.”
These goals are interconnected and the main idea binding them together is that no one should be left behind. To achieve the SDGs, all sectors need to do their share.
At the local level, the Development Communication department of Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan has adopted the 17 SDGs in its theme for this academic year, “Transforming our World through Communication for Development.”
DevCom professor Dr Ma Theresa Rivera shares, “DevCom through the years has evolved through sustainable development, which is why we are called development communicators. [This year’s] theme emphasizes our unity in the promotion of the SDGs in our society and in local communities.”
“The theme also echoes, and should be echoed by development communicators. The theme means a lot to the department and the students, and it should be translated into more popular terms and ways through various media,” Rivera adds, referring to forthcoming projects and productions of the department to nurture the vocation of development communicators.
GLOBAL GOALS. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, a set of ambitious aims across the three dimensions of sustainable development — economic development, social transformation, and environmental sustainability. Image courtesy of the UN.
Although the theme is heavily inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals, it has also adopted the principles of Communication for Development (C4D), a systematic approach that is concerned with behavioral change from the bottom up through an inclusive plan. To amplify voices and facilitate meaningful participation, C4D covers largescale media campaigns, social marketing, dissemination of information materials, and multimedia productions.
Rivera explains that the C4D serves as the general strategy for development and the SDGs as the collective approach.
“The fact that there are a lot of development concerns around the world means that there is a concern of promoting development in a much more efficient and effective manner. That calls for people who understand development more, and development communicators do that,” Rivera shares.
“DevCom understands change and is much more concerned with how change will take effect in a planned manner and in the grassroots level.”
Along with fellow DevCom faculty members, Rivera is hopeful that the students will take to heart this year’s theme, especially for seniors who will carry out the lessons and the drive for progress when they graduate.
The DevCom department, along with the Development Communication Society, has lined up a slew of activities for this school year — Lansad 2016, ECHO 2017, a film festival, participation in United Nations celebrations, and many more. The department also serves as the service unit for Media and Information Literacy for the Xavier Senior High School. Part of the MIL curriculum is the introduction of the 17 global goals and how the youth, especially senior high school students, can contribute to development and nation building.
More than a year after the world leaders adopted the said 17 goals, according to the new SDG Index and Dashboard, all countries face major challenges in achieving these ambitious goals by 2030. Poor and developing countries, in particular, score lowest on the SDG Index as they possess comparably little resources at their disposal.
As countries need to act more urgently to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals over the remaining 14 years, the challenge for young development communicators now is to respond to the call and ripple these aspirations one community at a time. ∎