Cities Are the First Responders to the Global Goals | Alexandra Hiniker, Carnegie Mellon University

Sure. As you mentioned, I have around 20 years of experience working at both local and global levels.

This includes implementing pandemic preparedness projects, and working in some of the world’s most heavily bombed and mined countries, like Cambodia, Laos and Lebanon, for the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations.

I also served as the representative of the international peacebuilding organisation PAX at the United Nations. There I focused on making sure global policies reflected the priorities of our partners in Syria, Iraq and South Sudan.

I actually began my career at the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago, a think and do tank.

There, I helped implement the first car sharing programme in the city. I also worked on a programme called the Energy Smart Pricing Program, which taught residential consumers about electricity use and costs so they would use less power when prices were high and reduce stress on the grid.

Oh, that was back in 2002. Car sharing is now common across the country. Is it popular in India?

Back then, there were just five cars. We had to convince people to think about why they needed to own a car and how sharing could benefit them.

That experience shaped my thinking about systemic issues, and that perspective has influenced my work throughout my career.

That’s a great question. On paper, it may look like I’ve had a lot of different jobs. But they all share a common thread, making sure my work is rooted in the needs of the people most affected by it.

Whether it’s pandemic preparedness, humanitarian disarmament, peacebuilding or sustainable development, the focus is always on the people.

Working in such diverse contexts has reinforced the idea that we’re all in this together, trying to make the world better for everyone, even though we may have different roles to play.

Absolutely. My first job at the Center for Neighborhood Technology was focused on Chicago, but I always wanted to work internationally.

I wasn’t sure how to make that shift, so I went to graduate school in Poland, where my family is from, and earned my degree there.

Afterwards, I moved to Washington, D.C., ready to take on the world, and ended up with a part time unpaid internship that required an advanced degree.

I had to work at a smoothie shop and as a chocolate fountain attendant to pay rent!

Eventually, I heard about a role at DAI, a development contractor. It was focused on contracts and budgets, things I knew nothing about, but I jumped at the chance because it was a paying job.

That experience was invaluable. It taught me skills I’ve used throughout my career.

Around that time, the bird flu outbreak of 2005 led me to work in many countries, training professionals on pandemic response. It even involved learning how to snap a chicken’s neck as part of avian flu preparedness!

Yes. I travelled to places like Afghanistan, Mali, Rwanda, Laos, Vietnam and Bulgaria to train medical professionals on bird flu preparedness.

After a while, though, I got tired of all the travelling and took a job at the UN focusing on mine action, something I knew nothing about but was passionate about learning.

That led me to cluster munition clearance, and then to work in Laos and Lebanon. I have been slowly building my skill set over time, centring the value I’ve always held, that people are the most important part of any job I do.

I think I’m better at working with other people who know things, and learning from them. There’s a little bit of both.

Collaboration has been key throughout my career.

Sure. I started working at the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs in 2017.

I had been working internationally for a long time, but I knew the importance of engaging at the local level, so this role seemed like the perfect fit.

The only position available at the time was on the Sustainable Development Goals, even though I hadn’t worked on them before.

My focus had been on the Security Council and conflict, so I was familiar with the UN system but hadn’t dealt with the SDGs directly.

I also recognised the critical role cities play in shaping policies at the UN. Using New York City’s unique position as host of the UN, I developed a concept to systematically engage city officials in global discussions.

For those unfamiliar, the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed in 2015, and countries voluntarily report their progress every July through the Voluntary National Review process.

Knowing the UN loves a good acronym, I wanted to create a complementary process for cities and local governments.

Initially, I thought of calling it the Voluntary City Review, but that seemed too limiting. It wasn’t just cities, but also counties and states that had a role to play. So I coined the term Voluntary Local Review.

Honestly, I made it up as I went along, and I was fortunate to have a supervisor who trusted me to take the lead.

New York City became the first city in the world to conduct a VLR, and since then, others have followed. The UN has now embraced it as an official process.

Exactly. Partnerships are key.

With the Global Goals programme, what we envisioned was a way to connect what was being discussed at the UN with what was happening in our cities, and to involve city leaders in those conversations.

The Sustainable Development Goals are 17 goals that all countries aim to achieve by 2030.

They were agreed at the national level, but the UN resolution specifically mentions the important role of local authorities, academia and the private sector. It doesn’t define what that role should be.

In reality, cities are the first responders to many of the issues the SDGs address. The Global Goals programme was launched to strengthen the connection between local implementation and global discussions.

We also wanted to bring people from the UN and other cities around the world to New York City, so our colleagues could learn and exchange ideas. It was not just to showcase our work, but to foster real collaboration and learning.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag. I’m thrilled that so many cities are taking this seriously, and the UN, through UN-Habitat and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, has developed ways to bring local governments into the conversation.

But I also see a lot of superficial engagement. Some cities produce reports just for the sake of it, hiring external consultants without doing the hard work of going through the goals and assessing where they can improve.

I imagine you’ve seen this with Earth5R. Sometimes organisations just want to say they’re doing things rather than actually doing them. Have you seen that?

Back in 2019, our provost committed the university to the Sustainable Development Goals. I began in 2020 to help implement that commitment by conducting the first Voluntary University Review. It looked at how our university contributes to the SDGs across education, research and practices.

Of course, 2020 also brought the pandemic, which made engaging with existing activities challenging. But it was also an opportunity. We were able to connect with many people and understand what they cared about.

In 2020, we published the first Voluntary University Review, which has informed our programming ever since.

In 2021, we launched an online platform where students, staff and faculty can search for courses, researchers and practices across the university related to the SDGs.

By 2022, we had opened the Sustainability Studio, a permanent space in our libraries where people from across campus and the Pittsburgh community can gather to discuss issues of shared concern.

Now, I lead a fantastic team of undergraduate and graduate students, including some from India. They help guide departments, units and community partners in their efforts to achieve the SDGs.

They are also developing a youth network across Pittsburgh, and they focus on bringing diversity, equity and inclusion into conversations about sustainability.

We see this as central to the goals, but it’s not always prioritised. Is that something you’ve encountered at Earth5R?

That’s so fascinating. What you mentioned touches on multiple SDGs.

Women’s empowerment connects to education, workforce development, healthcare and financial security all at once. It’s all interconnected!

Every university is different, but a common issue is that departments often work in silos.

At CMU, we have seven colleges, engineering, fine arts, computer science, humanities, public policy, science and business, and everyone is deeply focused on their own discipline.

When people think about climate action, they often think it’s limited to recycling or reducing greenhouse gases. They don’t see how their own work connects to broader sustainability issues.

It’s a common mindset. “I’m an economist”, or “I study 19th century cultural development”. So they don’t immediately see how their work fits into larger efforts like climate action or women’s empowerment.

One of the key challenges is getting people to see how their roles connect to these goals, and that it’s not just someone else’s responsibility. When people see their role in the bigger picture, they become more interested in contributing.

Yes. I worked as a consultant for the United Nations Foundation, creating a series of guides on how universities can address the Sustainable Development Goals. They start with three overarching questions.

First, why is the university even doing this, and for whom? That means going through who is affected by the university and what the actual goals of engaging with the SDGs are.

Second, where are we already doing work? The SDGs are fairly new, but we’ve been talking about these issues for a long time. They are systemic issues.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We need to find our strengths and where there are opportunities to do a bit more, and build on that rather than start from scratch.

And third, what programmes are we going to implement to address the needs we’ve identified? That can mean engaging students, educating faculty about how their work can be applied in other contexts, and working with staff, who often play critical roles but are not always prioritised.

One initiative I’m particularly proud of is a course I developed called Local Advocacy for Global Change. When I first arrived, many students raised concerns about things like recycling or composting, but I wanted them to think more deeply.

I ask students to pick an issue they’re particularly interested in, determine how it relates to the SDGs, and then find an international policy or process where it is discussed.

For example, one student was passionate about maternal mortality.

She looked into the extremely high rates of Black maternal mortality in Pittsburgh, and linked that to national discussions in the United States and global discussions under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

She also looked at other countries’ policies. Through that, she understood not just how things could be addressed in Pittsburgh, but how she could engage in global conversations on something she was so passionate about locally.

I’ve taught that course a few times, and students have gone on to do great things.

It sure is. One example is an event we have coming up on Monday. A colleague received a grant from the Center for the Arts in Society to explore coffee as a form of hospitality, looking at its cultural, social and environmental sides.

He’s working with faculty from different departments to explore the roots of coffee and its impacts. Events like this bring people from different fields together.

The first step is often helping faculty see how their research connects to the SDGs. For instance, we have a robotics expert who is passionate about food security, even though it doesn’t appear in her research.

By identifying these connections, we create opportunities for collaboration.

Absolutely, though it’s a delicate balance. Universities, especially students and faculty, are eager to help, but they’re not always skilled at listening to what communities need.

Sometimes they’re so focused on their solutions that they overlook what the community actually requires.

One example of good collaboration is our partnership with Sustainable Pittsburgh. Through a network called DISCOVER, we bring together local governments, nonprofits and universities to define sustainability and find ways to measure it.

Universities can play a critical role by helping communities identify their needs and then supporting them in meeting those needs.

Beyond formal organisations, it’s also about how we engage with the people around us.

Absolutely. It’s important to bond around action.

Volunteering and engaging with communities give practical experience and build relationships that make a real impact.

I believe people need to look beyond their own spheres of influence and work more collaboratively. It’s essential to listen to others and understand their needs, because everyone has their own ideas of what’s wrong and how to fix it.

But if we don’t align these efforts and make sure everyone is working together, we might undermine each other’s work. That could stop us from reaching our ambitious goals.

I’m a strong believer in international humanitarian law and human rights law.

I’ve worked in this field for a long time. It can be complicated, disappointing and frustrating at times, but I still believe it’s the best way to bring countries together on an equal footing.

These laws create space for dialogue about shared values and commitments, even when some countries don’t comply or violate them. They also give us an opportunity to discuss how things can be improved.

Having an international understanding of what we’re trying to achieve, alongside local discussions on why it matters and how to implement it, is crucial.

Unsurprisingly, I’m encouraged by the growing role of local governments, at the city, state or county level, in international discussions.

They may not make the final decisions on treaties, but they implement many of the issues discussed internationally. Their practical experience is invaluable in informing those discussions.

That’s fantastic! In these kinds of meetings, we often see representatives and mayors from smaller cities, in South America, Africa and Europe, sharing their knowledge and experience.

It’s fascinating how much you can learn from these exchanges, even from smaller cities with fewer resources.

When I worked with the City of New York, people would assume that because it’s a big city with many resources, we had all the solutions. But my colleagues in different departments were always eager to connect with cities of any size to improve their work.

Exactly. The contexts may differ, but at the core, the issues are shared. And as I mentioned at the outset, people really do want to connect, share and learn from each other.

Sure. One of the most important things, as I mentioned before, is to listen and understand what’s going on around you, so you can figure out how you might be part of the solution.

Not everyone is going to do the same thing. People should pursue their interests. We all have a role to play, and trying to do the same thing as everyone else may not be the most effective approach.

When you’re younger and have fewer commitments, it’s a great time to explore different topics and experiences to find what brings you joy and energy. Based on that, pursue educational and professional opportunities.

For me, there wasn’t a single linear path to success. It was about being open to new experiences.

Definitely. Mentorship can take many forms.

I think about my boss on the bird flu programme. He fully supported and trusted me and let me take the lead on significant tasks, even when I had to travel to different countries and work with people I didn’t know.

But my best mentor, and I’ve never told her this, was my boss when I worked in Cambodia for the United Nations. She had a really big portfolio and was really stressed out.

I asked if I could help, and she let me take on projects that interested me. Her support and feedback were invaluable, even though it probably took her more time than doing it herself.

In the end, I became a stronger colleague and found an area that truly engaged me. Her name is Melissa Sabatier, and I owe her a lot.

Thank you, Melissa! And yes, taking the initiative is crucial.

Sometimes it’s hard to reach out, but when students ask me for help, I always want to support them. I’m sure lots of people reach out to you as well.

A lot of the time, people worry that asking for help makes them look like they don’t know something. It’s quite the opposite. People are generally eager to help others. It makes us happy too.

It depends on the university. At Carnegie Mellon, for instance, our Office of Undergraduate Research manages fellowships and encourages students to come and talk about opportunities, not just big ones like Fulbright but smaller ones too. So the first step is to explore what your university offers.

Second, join student clubs that match your interests. I was part of an environmental concerns organisation in college, and I still connect with friends from that network today.

Lastly, make time for other activities you enjoy. I play the saxophone and I love to volunteer with local organisations.

I wish I had a picture to show you! Pittsburgh has a rich industrial past, and there are many projects to maintain what remains of that infrastructure.

I volunteer with an organisation that maintains it, and it’s completely different from my usual work. They tell me to mow the lawn, I mow the lawn. They tell me to paint something, I paint it. They even taught me how to build a bench.

It’s satisfying to contribute with my hands to a local community project, and it gives me a break from the more challenging work I do during the week.

Do you really want to know? I’m obsessed with powerlifting!

I go to the gym three times a week and try to lift the heaviest weights I can. It’s so satisfying to measure progress in such a simple way, lifting 10 more pounds than the week before.

It’s a great stress reliever, and I also love making music.