The South African Sustainable Development Knowledge Hub – a first for Africa – was launched at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) in Johannesburg, South Africa on 16 March 2017.
The Hub is the first to connect African policy makers and development partners with the research needed to implement the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. The beta version of the Hub is available at https://sdgknowledgehub.org/and currently contains the texts of 621 items, tagged in terms of SDG and Agenda 2063 aspiration. It is hosted by the University of Pretoria.
According to Minister Jeff Radebe, who delivered the keynote address at the opening, “the Sustainable Development Knowledge Hub is an online African initiative that focuses on collecting and disseminating relevant research on the implementation of Agenda 2063 and the SDGs in South Africa. I am told that this is the only Hub of its kind on the African continent and it provides access to the most recent and relevant South African research as an existing knowledge base to domesticate the SDGs”.
The Hub collects all recent publicly available research produced at South African universities that deal with implementing elements of Agenda 2063’s Aspirations and the SDGs. Articles are found by applying 401 search terms to research produced from 2014 to 2016. Of particular importance are articles that are technically accessible, and that focus on implementation.
Contact Prof Willem Fourie, Programme Coordinator: South African Sustainable Development Knowledge Hub, at +27 84 680 0911 or willem.fourie@up.ac.za for more information.