SDG18 Communication for All, Volume 1

The 2030 agenda for development, or what is known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is the most ambitious agenda collectively agreed upon by 193 countries in human history. In 2015, the UN Member States adopted the 17 SDGs as a framework that would help address the challenges being faced by humanity. From eradicating poverty, ending hunger, providing universal access to healthcare and education, and addressing climate change; to the partnering of individuals, communities, and nation-states to achieve global goals. Yet, the framers of the 2030 agenda forgot to dedicate one goal focused on the role of communication in achieving the SDGs. It is nearly impossible to achieve the SDGs without the articulation and embrace of the role of communication in development. Today, development has become a communication issue, and communication is a development issue. How could such a vital pillar of life be missing in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals? Volume 1 provides an overview of what the contributors have termed as the 'missing link' between existing SDGs: Communication for All.

This is a fascinating, informative and brilliantly argued two-volume book project that puts forward a convincing case for communication for all as an additional goal for the 2030 Agenda for Development, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Expert scholars and researchers, led by renowned Jan Servaes & Muhammad Jameel Yusha’, collectively take a stand for the purpose of revisiting and updating the agenda, collectively agreed by 193 countries in 2015. From several perspectives and regions, book takes head on the challenge of unpicking the Sustainable Development and the SDGs is accompanied by a clear call for including communication and culture in it. The volume makes it clear that if adopted by the 2030 Agenda for as the 18 SDG, it could create a framework that could leverage the role of communication and culture in achieving the SDGs. The unprecedented book provides evidenced and an unmissable voiced that uphold the right to communicate as a bedrock for democracy, development, and social change. The call to action is supported by evidence that is both fascinating and relevant. From several perspectives, including the capability, multiplicity and participatory approaches, communication and culture for all, as an SDG, could become the rallying point for inclusive social change and development. It is a legacy project that rises to the challenge. The book is not just urgent, it is a must read for all.—Winston Mano, Reader/Associate Professor, School of Media and Communication, University of Westminster, UK.


The Sustainable Development Goals have given the nations and peoples of the world non-authoritarian guidelines and signposts that each can apply in their own context, to increase our capacity to care for the planet, its human inhabitants and the wider web of life. This can only be done by widely sharing knowledge and communication. This book is an exemplary knowledge commons. Through this approach, we canall learn, in the whole world, but locally contextualized, how we can communicate the experiences of positive change for human health. Any improvement anywhere becomes a shared experience everywhere. I would recommend this approach for every single domain of development.
—Michel Bauwens, Founder and Director of the P2P Foundation.
 
This book offers a much-appreciated counterweight to the relegation of communication to a secondary role. Instead, it demonstrates communication’s centrality to development and humanity. The chapters, each in their own ways, mobilize justified support for the democratization of communication and an intensified respect for communication rights, which promise to offer increased opportunities for a global understanding through dialogue, grounded in a radical acknowledgement of diversity.—Nico Carpentier, President, International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).
 
Jan Servaes and Muhammad Jameel Yusha’u have elevated the discussion about the Sustainable Development Goals by drawing attention to the missing link in SDGs. Researchers and policy makers would find this book invaluable in the effort to ensure that no one is left behind in the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Development.
—Abdalla Uba Adamu, Professor, Department of Information and Media Studies, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria 
 

Jan Servaes (PhD) is the former UNESCO Chair in Communication for Sustainable Social Change. He is the Editor of the Lexington Book Series Communication, Globalization and Cultural Identity and Springer book series Communication, Culture and Change in Asia. 
 
Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u is the Editor-in-Chief of Africa Policy Journal at Harvard Kennedy School. He is the author of Regional Parallelism and Corruption Scandals in Nigeria and co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of International Communication and Sustainable Development.