FAQ

Between 2013-205 the MY World 2015 survey reached nearly 10 million people with a single question about which six of sixteen development issues were of greatest relevance to their lives. The response was used as part of the post-2015 process to define a new development agenda as the Millennium Development Goals period was coming to an end. The process resulted in the Sustainable Development Goals we have today, which were adopted by world leaders in 2015.

MY World 2030 version of the survey continues this citizen engagement of ensuring people’s voices are a part of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. It asks 3 questions. First, it asks whether the respondent is aware of the SDGs. Secondly, the respondent is asked to identify which six of the 17 SDGs are of greatest concern to them and their family and finally, to indicate whether the situation on their chosen goals is improving or worsening. The purpose is to track these indicators from now until 2030 to see impacts of awareness raising efforts and to provide an ongoing indication to governments and the UN of people’s priorities and of how progress on SDGs is being perceived.

MY World 2030 also improves upon the 2015 version in that it collects demographic information to help strengthen the disaggregation of the analysis of the data, namely on third gendered respondents, disabilities, and city information.

The objective of the MY World 2030 initiative is to empower people to share their voices and to inform governments and the UN on perceptions of priorities and progress on SDGs from now until 2030.
The survey

• is a tool to hold governments and institutions accountable making sure every person has their say on SDG achievements
• identifies priorities of different groups by capturing responses across all countries, disaggregating demographic groups by country, city,  gender, age, education and HDI
• engages the general public in issues of immediate concern to them
• The results are used at the local, national and regional level to support  governments to make decisions informed by this collective voice and to maintain ongoing dialogue with the public regarding progress

MY World  is build upon the three cornerstones:

• Awareness: increase ownership of the SDGs among citizens and all stakeholders, especially in the communities that are left behind.

• Accountability: empower citizens, especially those from the most disadvantaged communities to be able to hold their governments to account.

• Action: take stock of the data collected/produced so far, generate citizens’ actions to present public statements and calls for action from their public representatives on the SDGs.

We want to encourage people to share how the SDGs are linked to their lives and whether they feel that progress has been made in achieving them. Together with our partners, we aim to mobilise millions of citizens, institutions and organisations across the globe to raise their voices.

From now until 2030, we want as many people in as many countries as possible to be involved: citizens of all ages, genders and backgrounds, including but not limited to the world’s poor and marginalized communities. A partner may start collecting responses at any time. It is advisable to repeat the survey on a periodic basis to collect results that can be compared from one year to the next. Some suggested key dates such as the Global Day of Action for the SDGs on 25 September, or other key International Days may be a good time to launch your campaign.

You can start by registering as our partner at our website here: https://myworld2030.org/register/.  By being our partner, you can help us to promote and distribute the MY World 2030 survey while raising awareness of the SDGs. As a Partner, you will share the survey and collect responses from your community, networks, friends, school, church, etc. You can do this through the online survey platform or paper ballots.

Registering is quick and easy.

1. Register at: https://myworld2030.org/register/
2. Fill out the registration form
3. Wait for the confirmation email
4. Start collecting answers with your unique Partener ID

See the toolkits to help you get started as a MY World partner at: http://about.myworld2030.org/toolkits-sub-page/

As a part of registration each partner will choose their unique Partner Identification name (ID). This name should be a few characters long and it should reflect the name of your organization. The Partner ID will be linked to each response you collect, as a way to keep track of how many responses you have collected and how your respondents responded. Once you have collected at least 50 responses under your partner ID, these will be visible  in the global results platform. (see data.myworld2030.org – partner tab). When you share the survey online, you must provide the link to your unique partner link -ex. myworld2030.org/partner/yourparnterID, for responses to be associated with your organization. If you send us responses collected on paper, be sure to indicate your Partner ID.

Please do not register partner ID only using the name of your country because this would exclude others from your country. The name of the country is reserved for a national level campaign with the support of the government and/or UN. In addition, if you are representing an organization, make sure the name does not exclude other teams of the same organization in other regions. The partner names are normally approved by the SDG Action Campaign and you would be informed if for any reason there is a possible problem with the partner name you have chosen.

If you are working together with others in the same organization or company it is best if you can all register under a primary partner ID. This will allow you to compile and view a larger number of responses associated with your organization. If you are not working together with others but you see there is an active MY World partner in your country, you could approach them and ask to become part of their team. This can help provide you with access to more information, tips and tools from others in your country who are supporting MY World. You can still have the individual contributions tracked using the partner ID/username as outlined below.

Yes. MY World partners have the greatest success when they build a team of motivated people to help share the survey. To help build incentives and encourage the volunteers it is also possible to give each person their own unique link so that their results can also be tracked and rewarded individually.

You can create individual IDs for each person on your team or each chapter of your organization.

1. Add a username for each person or chapter to the end of your partner id as follows:

https://myworld2030.org/partner/partnerid/username

for instance: https://myworld2030.org/partner/youth4SDGs/maria1

2. Ensure that each team member/chapter collects votes under their unique link to keep track of the results generated from each person.
3. You can offer prizes or recognition to the people/chapter who collect the most votes.

Tip: Since this user-specific url creates a rather long link for sharing, it is a good idea to also embed the link in hyperlinked text. -ie- vote here rather than vote here:  https://myworld2030.org/partner/youth4SDGs/maria1

Yes! We look for MY World partnerships across all sectors of society, and universities have played a very important role in the MY World project. Students offer a ready source of enthusiasm and skills to support rolling out the survey and faculty members can offer guidance to support the organization of mobilization activities and the analysis of responses. University campus can be an easy place to distribute surveys in classrooms or to set up a MY World voting booth or event and to capture the voices of youth which are so critical to the 2030 agenda.

Yes! All sectors have a role to play in the SDGs. Companies have played an important role in helping to share the survey to the public over their marketing and social media channels. Capturing citizen voices can also start in the workplace, where the survey can be easily shared over internal email channels. Interested in hearing how your employees feel about the SDGs? Contact us and we can help you to customize the survey.

Yes. The data will be presented to world leaders and decision makers at multiple key moments until 2030, both formally through political processes such as the UN General Assembly or the High Level Political Forum and informally through frequent creative ‘People’s Voices’ exhibitions at the UN and other international meetings.

In order for your data to appear under the partner tab in the Global Data webpage , a minimum of 50 responses must be collected under the same partner ID. The Global data site is updated weekly, so if you have just reached to 50 votes, it might take few working days to have them visible on our site.

You can also find all the answers collected in .cvs format at our website under the link “MYWORLD DATA”. The easiest way to find your votes is to use Ctrl+F command by typing your partner ID in the search field.

The survey aims to capture the perceptions and status of the goals in the country where the respondent is living. This is to provide feedback to governments on the services they are providing and on the priorities of their people. For respondents who are living away from home it is best to be consistent. If the respondent chooses to provide feedback about his/her home country, then he or she should indicate the home country rather than the new host country in the demographic questions.

Yes! We want to have the survey available as many languages as possible so your help in doing this is much appreciated. Translating the survey is easy and quick. You can download the template from our MY World Resources page.

The translator can create a new tab by copying for example the English tab, and do the editing by translating the column B. As many of the terms to be translated are the official names of countries, google translate can be helpful. Also please do a little research to see if material on Sustainable Development Goals is already available in your language through UN or government sources.  

The MY World logo shown below is open source and can be used by any partner that is sharing the survey. You can use it alongside your own organization logo to indicate the partnership. Please be clear in your communications. As a MY World partner you do not represent the UN. The UN logo or that of the SDG Action Campaign may not be used without express permission.

Yes, there are a wide range of tools and approaches that the SDG Action Campaign supports for getting involved in spreading the word about the SDGs and capturing people’s voices. The Humans of MY World photo series captures people’s personal stories and links these to the SDGs and we have a toolkit to help partners create their own series.  We offer virtual reality film screenings at international and national events around the world. These photos and the VR films are showcased along with the MY World data in exhibitions. The SDG Action Campaign provides these tools for others to replicate in their SDG advocacy efforts. You can learn more about our complete set of actions in our SDG Action Toolkit.

Write to support@sdgactioncampaign.org where you can reach the full team of the SDG Action Campaign and your question or request will be channeled to the best person to respond.