Introducing a new way for NGOs to report their contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals

Sightsavers is a UK-based NGO, with projects across Africa and South Asia to eliminate preventable blindness and promote rights for people with disabilities.

In recent years, we have been thinking through the question of how we can report and communicate our contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Looking across the international development sector, there didn’t seem to be a methodology used by NGOs to report on the SDGs in a systematic way. So we piloted a first attempt: the Voluntary Stakeholder Review (VSR).

What is a Voluntary Stakeholder Review?

A VSR is a comprehensive report which articulates an organisation’s contribution to the SDGs. Loosely based on the formats of Voluntary National Reviews and Voluntary Local Reviews I, a VSR provides an analysis of the work and impact of an organisation, such as an NGO or business, with an explanation of how this relates to the SDGs. As there is no fixed format, this can be done in different ways, free from any constraints of donor reporting, according to the organisation’s interests and nature.

By definition, a VSR is voluntary – it is not an external evaluation, and there is no obligation to submit it to the UN or share it with other organisations. A VSR is not intended to provide a conclusive assessment of all aspects of an organisation’s work or an objective measurement of the extent to which each activity or programme delivers the SDGs. Instead, a VSR provides an opportunity for an NGO to explore the different ways in which its work relates to the broader SDG agenda, and to assess what can be learned from any achievements or challenges encountered.

How to do a Voluntary Stakeholder Review

Sightsavers’ initiative to develop a VSR goes back many years. In 2021, we undertook an organisational review and refreshed our strategies on eye health, refractive error, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), inclusive education and social inclusion. As part of this process, we developed organisational-level indicators to measure progress towards our overall strategy. This provided an opportunity to map our organisational indicators not just to the overall SDGs, but to specific targets. For the first time, this enabled us to generate a detailed data picture, showing which SDG targets we contribute towards in each country and how this is done, with data reported annually against our organisational indicators.

Our next step was to adopt the ‘3 Rs’ framework for presenting our contribution to the SDGs, an approach developed by Dr Graham Long, an academic and expert on the SDGs at Newcastle University.

The first r stands for realisation’. These are the Sightsavers’ projects that directly deliver the SDGs; for example, a Sightsavers project delivering mass drug treatments to work towards the elimination of NTDs.

The second r is for ‘‘regulation’, which is when Sightsavers holds governments to account over their delivery of the SDGs. An example of this is when Sightsavers supported the passing of the Disability Act in Kenya, which sets out criteria and standards for inclusive development against which future Kenyan governments can be held.

The final r is for ‘representation’. This is when Sightsavers supports people with disabilities to be represented in SDG delivery and monitoring processes; for example, by ensuring Organisations of Persons with Disabilities are included in Voluntary National Reviews.

Using this framework, we then asked each team across the organisation to contribute to the VSR to outline how their work contributes to the SDGs in terms of the 3 Rs and provide data and case studies to illustrate Sightsavers’ contribution across the 23 countries in which we operate.  

What did our Voluntary Stakeholder Review tell us?

Conducting the VSR proved to be a useful process for Sightsavers as it produced a range of findings which have informed our future planning, programming and communications.

The VSR found Sightsavers contributes to 29 SDG targets across ten SDG goals across the areas of health, education, gender equality, employment, inequality and climate change. Beyond this, strengthening data collection systems, conducting research, and supporting the review, development and implementation of government policies stood out as crucial aspects of Sightsavers’ contribution to the SDGs. While conventional internal and donor reporting focuses on an NGO’s activities, outputs and expenditure, the VSR was a useful way to explore the messier areas of co-accountability.

The VSR shows the connections between the different aspects of Sightsavers’ work. For example, Sightsavers’ projects that focus on equipping young people with the necessary IT skills to find employment shows the intersection between education and economic empowerment, and illustrates how SDG targets, as well as our strategic objectives, cannot be achieved in isolation.

Moreover, the VSR revealed the importance of working in partnership with government ministries as well as organisations for people with disabilities and civil society. Sightsavers does not directly employ cataract surgeons, teachers and community health workers, but we contribute by providing technical and financial assistance, and facilitating cross-governmental cooperation, and collaboration between government and civil society stakeholders.

Where next for Voluntary Stakeholder Reviews?

The full VSR report is available on the Sightsavers website, as well as summary of the findings and a How-to Note for NGOs that may be interested in conducting a VSR of their own.

As we approach 2030, we hope the VSR experience will be a useful and practical guide for civil society organisations to demonstrate their contribution to the SDGs. While this VSR model will not be applicable to every NGO, and others may need to adapt it to their specificities, we hope it can encourage a broader conversation on SDG reporting, and how we can more effectively share resources and learn from each other.