The OECD Public Affairs and Communications team unveiled a beta version of the SDG Pathfinder tool (https://sdg-pathfinder.org/#/) at this year’s OECD Forum (Paris, May 2019). The Pathfinder uses UNSILO technology to identify policy documents and data published by the OECD and its partner IGOs (UN, World Trade Organization, Commonwealth Publications, Nordic Co-operation, International Telecommunication Union) that correspond to one or more of the seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There are also two cross-cutting views that highlight how the SDGs are linked.
Users can choose from one of the 17 SDGs, which brings up a new screen with approximately 40 subjects that describe that SDG. SDG 5, Gender Equality, for example, contains subjects such as “access to technology” and “gender stereotypes,” as well as less expected ones like “women entrepreneurs” and “unpaid care work.” Each of the themes is linked to one or more documents from the six iLibrary collections when you click on “analysis.” Alternatively, clicking on “data” will direct the user to a topic that contains relevant data:
As a result, the Pathfinder becomes a fully annotated thematic index of all available IGO content on the iLibrary platform, including text and data.
Furthermore, the SDG Map shows linkages across SDGs, drawing from a broader pool of 200 to 400 concepts per SDG, allowing users to browse subjects with their mouse and click on them to obtain data and analysis to examine, read, and add to a reader’s list.
“The tool is particularly important because it pools information across six IGOs, such as the United Nations itself and the World Trade Organisation,” said Janine Treves, Digital Managing Editor at the OECD. This implies that when a user uses this tool, they are searching across several IGO collections, increasing their understanding of the SDGs and making them easier to apply.
“Following the launch, we will take on board feedback from early users, leading up to a full release in September. Indexing over 100 000 documents by hand would have been prohibitively time consuming and expensive; we couldn’t have done the Pathfinder without Classify by Discovery.”
