Engage with the Handbook
The SDG Accountability Handbook aims to serve as a practical resource for civil society–one that is continuously updated according to the present experiences of CSOs working on SDG implementation, monitoring, and accountability around the globe.
To ensure the resource’s ongoing relevance and usefulness, the TAP Network encourages civil society partners to engage with the Handbook in the following ways:
Contribute a Case Study
The SDG Accountability Handbook provides practical guidance–and also features relevant case studies. The TAP Network collects new case studies from civil society organizations on a rolling basis and showcases these stories and lessons on the Handbook’s online platform: SDGAccountability.org. It is the TAP Network’s hope that the regular publication of the latest case studies from CSOs undertaking SDG accountability work will help maximize learning opportunities, and guide others to develop their own approaches to accountability within their unique country contexts.
Submit a Spotlight Report
Civil society plays an important role in the international monitoring process through the production of “spotlight reports”, which provide assessments–independent from government-led Voluntary National Review (VNRs)–of country level progress on the SDGs and 2030 Agenda.
To support this important approach to SDG accountability, the TAP Network has launched a portal to start collecting and showcasing civil society spotlight reports. In the absence of any dedicated official platform for the UN and the HLPF to collect spotlight reports from civil society, the TAP Network hopes this independent portal can become a space of added-value to all stakeholders – including the UN and governments – when it comes to accessing civil society assessments of SDG progress in the future.
Share Your Civil Society Spotlight Report, by the TAP Network, is an online platform to collect and showcase spotlight reports from civil society stakeholders.
Suggest Additional Guidance for SDG Accountability
The TAP Network envisions the SDG Accountability Handbook as a living, breathing resource, and we endeavor to refresh it regularly to ensure that it always provides the most up-to-date and relevant approaches and information on the accountability for the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda.
To that end, the TAP Network strongly welcomes and encourages civil society to share additional content to help foster accountability with us — whether this information relates to the approaches outlined in the Handbook currently, or new and innovative approaches that you think could be showcased going forward.
Host a National Workshop (or other accountability training)
In an effort to strengthen the capacity of country-level CSOs to engage in national VNR processes, and to support monitoring and accountability for the 2030 Agenda more broadly, the TAP Network will host national workshops in select countries undertaking VNRs in 2019, and beyond. These workshops can serve as an important opportunity to provide a space for country-level CSOs to come together to strategize around collective advocacy priorities, particularly in regards to engagement with their government around the drafting of their 2019 VNR reports, and help enable these CSO groups to engage constructively in the VNR processes themselves. Additionally, these workshops can also contribute to awareness raising and knowledge of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda amongst civil society in general.
These workshops will utilize the SDG Accountability Handbook as a primary capacity building guide, as well as other relevant resources from the TAP Network and its partners around the globe.
Join the TAP Network
The Transparency, Accountability & Participation (TAP) Network is a broad network of CSOs that works to ensure that open, inclusive, accountable, effective governance and peaceful societies are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and that civil society are recognized and mobilized as indispensable partners in the design, implementation of and accountability for sustainable development policies, at all levels.
The TAP Network’s engagement structures are broken down into two main categories: “Partners” and “Members,” with each enjoying very different sets of privileges and benefits. These various options for organizations provide a responsive yet flexible engagement structure that enables TAP to identify key implementation partners to support its work, while at the same time being open and inclusive of organizations that are supportive of TAP’s work, but who may be unable to make explicit commitments to helping advance TAP’s work.
Become a TAP Network Partner
TAP Network “Partners” are organizations that take part in the substantive work of the TAP Network, and make explicit commitments to implementing SDG16 or towards accountability for the 2030 Agenda. In exchange for making these commitments, “Partners” enjoy an exclusive set of benefits and privileges, and can benefit from direct support from the TAP Network – both technical and financial.