We use the word ‘UNESCO’ so much now it can be easy to forget what it actually means.

UNESCO is the United Nations’ Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Due to this, their ethics, vision and strategy are always created with the principles of the UN at their core. 

In 2015, the Heads of State and Government, Senior UN officials and representatives of civil society gathered at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly and adopted 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). 

 “These objectives form a program of sustainable, universal and ambitious development, a program of the people, by the people and for the people, conceived with the active participation of UNESCO.” – UNESCO

As a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, with our UNESCO designation of a City of Literature, these 17 SDGs form the basis of everything we work towards and have to be a part any decisions we make. The goals are all things we like to think we’d take on board anyway, but it’s good to have that concrete list there to remind us and keep us on track. 

For the last couple of years, the UN has also had a Sustainable Development Goals Bookclub. 

“[The #SDGBookClub] aims to use books as a tool to encourage children ages 6-12 to interact with the principles of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a curated reading list of books from around the world related to each of the 17 SDGs in all six official UN languages—Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.” – The UN

Join the Global Goals movement!  

Manchester and the other UNESCO Cities of Literature like to use December to remind ourselves and inform our audiences (not just the children) about the 17 SDGs, through our campaign #17BooksFor17SDGs.  

Each day for the first 17 days of December, we will highlight a book that embodies each of the 17 SDGs in turn. We’ll use our social media channels to do this (twitter, facebook and instagram), but if you’re lucky we’ll create a full roundup for the end of the 17 days that we’ll put on our website and our TikTok. We’re going to try our best to make sure there’s a Manchester spin to each of our choices as well. 

Keep your eyes out for our posts, and let us know if you think we missed any obvious choices! 

For those who are wondering, the 17 SDGs are: 

1. No Poverty 
2. Zero Hunger
3. Good Health and Wellbeing 
4. Quality Education 
5. Gender Equality 
6. Clean Water and Sanitation 
7. Affordable and Clean Energy 
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth 
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure 
10. Reduced Inequalities 
11. Sustainable Cities and Communications 
12. Responsible Consumption and Production 
13. Climate Change 
14. Life Below Water 
15. Life on Land 
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions 
17. Partnerships for the Goals