Citizen Science and the Sustainable Development Goals in Low and Middle Income Country Cities

Abstract

Progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is monitored using a set of targets and indicators. Gaps in official datasets have led to calls for the inclusion of data generated through citizen science (CS) and allied approaches. Co-benefits of CS mean these approaches could also contribute to localising, defining, and achieving the SDGs. However, mapping of current and potential contributions is needed, as well as an understanding of the challenges these approaches present. We undertake a semi-systematic review of past and current CS projects and assess them against dimensions of CS—spatial, temporal, thematic, process, and management—and their value for the SDGs set out by Fritz et al. in 2019, focusing on low and middle income country (LMIC) cities as key environments in the battle for sustainability. We conduct interviews with project leaders to further understand the challenges for CS in these contexts. We find opportunities for projects to monitor and achieve a wide range of goals, targets, and indicators. However, we find fewer projects in low income countries when compared with middle income countries. Challenges include balancing local needs with national monitoring requirements and a lack of long-term funding. Support is needed for LMICs to achieve the potential of CS.

Suitability of Data-Collection Methods, Tools, and Metrics for Evaluating Market Food Environments in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

“…Evaluating food sustainability in the food environment is important for understanding how food environments contribute to multiple SDGs. In LMICs, where there are recognized gaps in official data, the inclusion of data generated through meaningful citizen science (CS) and other approaches can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the SDGs [52,53], including targets related to food environments.…”

Crowdsourcing Public Engagement for Urban Planning in the Global South: Methods, Challenges and Suggestions for Future Research

“…Recently, there has been a growing trend on the potential for crowdsourcing as a data collection method for monitoring sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the GS. Pateman et al [63] provided a review on the use of citizen science for monitoring SDGs in low-and-middle-income countries, while Fraisl et al [6] introduced a citizen science tool (Picture Pile) for monitoring SDGs.…”

“…Despite the recent improvements, the digital divide is still present in many parts of the world [63]. The GS is also characterized by a technological gap with respect to the rest of the world.…”

The grand challenges facing environmental citizen science

“…However, it has also been highlighted that such monitoring of the SDGs, or sustainability more generally, is not always that straightforward, and that many current citizen science projects are not adapted for this purpose. In particular, the challenge of balancing local needs with national reporting requirements, without overburdening small low budget citizen science projects with the strict requirements of SDG reporting (Moczek et al, 2021), is a significant challenge (Pateman et al, 2021). While a number of citizen science projects could directly contribute to the monitoring of the SDGs with some additional efforts in order to standardize their data for SDG reporting needs (Fraisl et al, 2020;Moczek et al, 2021), the design and setting up of interfaces to UN or NSO databases would highly facilitate this process (Moczek et al, 2021).…”