The course is also available in French and Spanish

Introduction

The SDG-PSS is a free, online and secure system developed as a part of the project “Water in the World We Want” by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), the United Nations Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD), the Korea Environment Corporation (K-eco), the Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea, and national institutions from Costa Rica, Ghana, Pakistan, and Tunisia.

The SDG-PSS is designed for water-focused policy makers, development actors, and researchers interested in producing reliable, systematic and “fit-for-policy” evidence on the enabling environment for achieving SDG 6. It has been trialed by policy makers and experts from five countries – Costa Rica, Ghana, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Republic of Korea – between 2016 and 2018.

The SDG-PSS provides evidence that is critically needed to define policy on the water-related issues as outlined by the 2030 Agenda and, more specifically, by the SDG 6. It builds upon six critical components: Capacity Assessment; Finance Assessment; Policy and Institutional Assessment; Gender Mainstreaming; Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)/Resilience Mainstreaming; and Integrity. These components were chosen as they allow a better understanding of the enabling environment in which water and sanitation policies are developed and implemented, and under which conditions the achievement of the SDG 6 remains possible.

The SDG-PSS relies on several years of work around water and sanitation issues and the contributions of different organizations, and draws entirely on the already well-established tools, processes and practices that are commonly used for water-related management at national and international levels. In this way, countries that are used to report data while using such international tools should be able to easily adopt and adapt SDG-PSS for their national reporting systems on SDG 6.

The SDG-PSS is a definite answer to the challenges of bringing data and information from multiple international and national tools and translating them into a “fit-for-policy” evidence framework. Professionals can easily navigate through this user-friendly system by translating the trends and data to support collaborative planning for the development, refinement, and implementation of water and sanitation-related policies.

The e-course

To address capacity building for systematic and effective use of SDG-PSS, the e-course provides training and teaching on how to use this system to produce evidence and data on the enabling environment for achieving SDG 6. Filling the SDG-PSS with data may require significant efforts from various agencies and may be time-consuming, as data may not be promptly available for all targets and indicators of SDG 6. Nevertheless, the effort required by the SDG-PSS to get all the evidence together is an essential step for countries to evaluate better which data is missing and where gaps in policy-making exist.

The SDG-PSS e-course consists of the following modules: introduction to SDG-PSS; accessing SDG-PSS and registering in the system; SDG-PSS components; entering data in the SDG-PSS; and reporting in the SDG-PSS. Each module consists of video lectures, reading supplements, graded evaluations or assignments, and discussion to develop a community of practice. Anyone engaged in this course will be able to share their questions comments about the e-course. The project team will follow up on these questions/comments.

Key learnings

Upon completion of this self-paced e-course, the participants should be able to navigate through SDG-PSS pages and its components; use SDG-PSS to generate and analyze evidence on the national progress and the enabling environment of the achievement of SDG 6.

Intended users

The e-course is designed for water-focused policy makers, practitioners, and researchers.

Module Subjects

• Introduction to SDG-PSS
• Accessing and registering in the system
• SDG-PSS components
• Six critical components
• The component 'Status'
• Entering the data in SDG-PSS
• Reporting in SDG-PSS

Partners

*Course cover photo by Albert González Farran, UNAMID