The Potential of Crowdsourcing to Advance the SDGs by Fostering Local and Global Collaboration

Abstract

The establishment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) intend to support government to respond the world transformation. Along with the government strives to achieve SDGs, technology cannot be dismissed. Technology has radically shifted human behavior, bringing interconnectedness among citizens in a way that has never been imagined before. It offers the potential to contribute to cheaper and faster collective problem-solving, in particular, to solve big and laborious tasks that are impossible to be done by a small number of people. This collective action, namely crowdsourcing, has been implemented in many areas such as supporting research activities, public administration, as well as social projects. Seeing this potential power from citizens, the main objective of this paper to identify the prospective impact of crowdsourcing for SDGs and bring effectiveness for government works. We have identified 208 crowdsourcing projects across the globe that are closely related to the development sector. Our classification suggests that generating data is the highest used of crowdsourcing method, while Goal 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities has the highest number of crowdsourcing projects.