Participatory Planning for Local Sustainability Engaged by the SDGs: Case of Paleegama Village, Puttalam

Abstract

Initiatives are essential worldwide, nationally, and locally to accomplish the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs. To coordinate between scales, local initiatives must be wisely planned to be aligned with worldwide and national priorities. Local planning for sustainability must be adaptive and heterogeneous but reliable and motivated by the local community. As Planners, we describe an approach called ‘Fixed Goal Approach’ to co-create a local sustainability plan using the SDGs such as SDG-3, SDG-6, SDG-8, SDG-11, SDG-13 and SDG-15 for a rural community in Puttalam District, village called Paleegama using participatory techniques for co-creation such as ‘Listening Post’ and ‘Kitchen Table Discussion’ and Contextual Analysis such as ‘Snowball process’ and ‘Comprehensive Desktop Review’. The community placed high importance on infrastructure for accomplishing social equity and sustainable growth while conserving its unique setting. By formulating their priorities in this community-led plan, the community is permitted to advocate for the sustainable development of their village with decision-makers. If local communities develop sustainability plans using the SDGs, then such planning will be reliable between and across environmental scales and associated with global goals. This will also help accomplish the SDGs at national and global scales, as encouraged by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.