17 Rooms Podcast

17 Rooms is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur, senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan, senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple, Google and Spotify. Follow the Brookings Podcast Network @policypodcasts.

Collaboration

What we learned about 17 Rooms and growing the community

Zia Khan and John W. McArthur

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Illustration, women of different faiths

Positive influence of faith for gender equality

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Jean Duff, and Blessing Omakwu

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Residents are seen in the Ivorian cocoa farming village of Djigbadji, commonly known as Bandikro or Bandit Town, located inside the Rapides Grah protected forest and destroyed by forest authorities in January 2020, in Soubre, Ivory Coast January 7, 2021. Picture taken January 7, 2021. REUTERS/Luc Gnago

Valuing local knowledge and solutions for SDG progress

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Jamie Drummond, and Kennedy Odede

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Indian teacher and students wearing protective face mask attend their class at a government girls school after the Rajasthan government allowed schools to reopen for VIth to VIIIth classes in Beawar. (Photo by Sumit Saraswat/Pacific Press/Sipa USA) (Photo by Sumit Saraswat/Pacific Press/Sipa USA)No Use Germany.

Reimagining teaching and learning spaces

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Elizabeth M. King, and Urvashi Sahni

Thursday, January 20, 2022

On March 11, 2021 a coalition of healthcare advocacy community organizations gathered outside Pfizer Worldwide Headquarters in Manhattan to call on the Biden administration to push pharmaceutical companies to commit to equitable global gaccine distribution and help end the pandemic everywhere by supporting the waiver of the World Trade Organizations monopoly protections for Big Pharma and the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool and to ensure an equitable vaccine distribution throughout the world. (Photo by Erik McGregor/Sipa USA)No Use Germany.

Reducing inequality has no easy answers

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Martín Abregú, and Elizabeth Sidiropoulos

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

A boy walks past makeshift toilets erected beneath electricity pylons, ahead of local government elections in Evaton, south of Johannesburg, South Africa, October 27, 2021. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

New targets and metrics for energy reliability, productivity, and quality

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Todd Moss, and Clare Boland Ross

Thursday, January 13, 2022

May 8, 2021 - Orlando, Florida, United States - A man unloads pallets of food assistance from the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida at a mobile food distribution site on May 8, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Although the coronavirus pandemic is beginning to ease and employers are hiring, families in Central Florida continue to experience food insecurity. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto)NO USE FRANCE

Advancing best practices for just COVID-19 relief and recovery efforts

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Elizabeth Andersen, and Sarah E. Mendelson

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

FILE PHOTO: Scuba divers swim past fish along a coral reef off the west coast of Zanzibar island, Tanzania, December 4, 2007. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly (TANZANIA)/File Photo

A local problem-solving framework that benefits people and oceans

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Lisa Dreier, and David Obura

Thursday, January 6, 2022

A close view of a local community public toilet in Kibera.World Toilet Day is an official United Nations international observance day on 19 November to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis Worldwide. This is always set as a reminder of proper sanitation and the importance of having a toilet across our local neighborhoods to avoid the spreading and contracting of diseases amongst ourselves and also protect our waters and climate against pollution from the disposal of flying toilet bags. (Photo by Donwilson Odhiambo / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)No Use Germany.

Making human waste a resource at scale

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Letitia Obeng, and Jennifer Sara

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

A villager goes through the process of a fingerprint scanner for the Unique Identification (UID) database system at an enrolment centre at Merta district in the desert Indian state of Rajasthan February 22, 2013. In a more ambitious version of programmes that have slashed poverty in Brazil and Mexico, the Indian government has begun to use the UID database, known as Aadhaar, to make direct cash transfers to the poor, in an attempt to cut out frauds who siphon billions of dollars from welfare schemes. Picture taken February 22, 2013. REUTERS/Mansi Thapliyal (INDIA - Tags: BUSINESS SOCIETY POVERTY SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY)

Digital public goods for SDG attainment

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Lucy Harris, Sanjay Jain, and Liv Marte Kristiansen Nordhaug

Thursday, December 30, 2021

MOSCOW, RUSSIA - OCTOBER 12, 2021: An exhibition at an international congress titled Digital Medicine and Information Technologies in Healthcare. Sechenov Digital Health Summit held by the Digital Biodesign and Personalized Healthcare research center as part of the Year of Science and Technology in Russia. Mikhail Japaridze/TASS.No use Russia.

Digital health tools for pandemic preparedness

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Steve Davis, and Pardis Sabeti

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

A customer conducts a mobile money transfer, known as M-Pesa, at a Safaricom agent stall in downtown Nairobi, Kenya October 16, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Digital cash transfer infrastructure

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Michael Faye, and Cina Lawson

Thursday, December 23, 2021

FILE PHOTO: Delegates talk during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain November 13, 2021. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

A “breakthrough” agenda on climate finance

Amar Bhattacharya, John Podesta, Zia Khan, and John W. McArthur

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Women carries mangrove saplings for plantation in the riverside in the Sundarbans. (Photo by Sudip Maiti/Pacific Press/Sipa USA)No Use Germany.

Investing in nature to protect and benefit people

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Rosina Bierbaum, and Richard Florizone

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Stack of business newspapers

Business journalism as a lever for SDG accountability

Zia Khan, John W. McArthur, Matthew Bishop, and Raj Kumar

Tuesday, December 14, 2021