This September, UN member states met in New York to ratify the Global Goals, committing to 17 goals that will act as a blueprint for global development over the next 15 years. The ambitious agenda – which tackles poverty, climate change and inequality for all people in all countries – was confirmed by 193 countries. For the next six weeks, Vera will highlight the work of partner organizations contributing to the Global Goals.
“They are a to-do list for people and planet, and a blueprint for success. To achieve these new global goals, we will need your high-level political commitment. We will need a renewed global partnership.” -Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General
Global Goal Number 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Vera Partner: Spark MicroGrants
Spark MicroGrants supports Rwandan, Ugandan, and Burundian rural communities in designing, implementing, and managing their own social impact projects, working collaboratively with their grantees to develop community-driven implementations. Community members develop ideas for their initiative, which have ranged from planting trees to counter erosion to, in one island community, buying a boat so that they could more easily reach their jobs on the mainland. Once they’ve voted on their top choice of an initiative, communities meet monthly with Spark representatives to monitor progress against goals of the initiative, a process that fosters cohesion. Despite Spark’s initial grant and two-year commitment to a project, communities take ownership of their own initiative, contributing financially or in man hours to the implementation.
To maintain the quality and transparency of their operations, Spark partnered with Vera to design an application that helps track results of pre-, during-, and post-implementation surveys. Data from different stages of individual projects now flows into a central repository in Salesforce, whose powerful analytics allow Spark to aggregate data across communities in all three countries where they operate. Additionally, Spark staff now receive automated alerts that remind them to follow up when a community should be progressing from one phase of a project to the next, facilitating prompt data collection and keeping implementations on track. The system will help Spark staff working on a diverse range of implementations in a range of geographies stay up to date on work across the organization, house the data points used to assess an implementation’s challenges and successes, and facilitate meeting goals on Spark’s pre-determined timelines.
