Whether or not your programs are focused directly on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many of your objectives likely align with them. Working in the development sector, there are an abundance of frameworks meant to aid us in doing development better and more thoughtfully. While oftentimes helpful, this can also leave practitioners feeling inundated with too many choices and confused as to how multiple frameworks work together to help achieve programmatic goals.  

To address this challenge and bridge the conversation about how the Digital Principles can help to achieve your SDG objectives, we are proud to release our new SDG x Digital Principles Framework.  

Developed in partnership with TechChange, this interactive guide is intended to serve as a resource to non-technical specialists tasked with overseeing and funding digital development programs. It contributes to the growing body of knowledge that exists to help practitioners identify effective uses of technology in development programs, including good practices in investment at the local level. We selected a few case studies for each Global Goal to showcase how adhering to the Digital Principles can catalyze your ability to meet SDG targets and indicators. These partner resources are only a drop in the ocean of the critical work being done to advance technical knowledge within ICT4D.  

To further enhance user experience, we have integrated the SDG x Digital Principles Framework with DIAL’s Digital Global Goods online catalog (currently a beta release). This tool is a resource to help organizations discover and evaluate the open source products and tools that are available to support their projects, as well as other organizations who endorse the Digital Principles. 

The team also developed another interactive resource to help practitioners better understand the overlap between the SDGs and the Digital Principles – our SDG x Digital Principles card game. The game is available in the popular Digital Principles 101 workshop materials and allows participants to draw connections between the Sustainable Development Goals and the Digital Principles through a roleplay-based project ideation and pitch exercise. 

This game helps users understand the Digital Principles in practical scenarios and how they support SDG initiatives, and better align donor and practitioner considerations and priorities.  

The SDG x Digital Principles card game was originally created as a physical card deck. However, in the spirit of sustainability and accessibility, an electronic version is also available, which is best accessed and played on two separate tablets or iPads.  

Like all Digital Principles resources, the SDG x Digital Principles card game is published under a Creative Commons license and we encourage everyone to download the game and add new projects for the SDG project design cards! 

In case you missed it last week, read our blog where we introduced our Digital Principles Maturity Matrix tool for program design and proposal evaluation, which helps set shared standards between implementers and donors for designing and scoring grant and contract proposals against the Digital Principles. You can also check it out on our website and download your own copy. Be on the look-out next week to learn about the rest of our latest guidance documents! For any questions or feedback on our tools, contact PrinciplesAdmin@digitalimpactalliance.org. 

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This post is the second of a four-part series. 
Part 1: Maturity Matrix for Program Design and Proposal Evaluation