Methodology and operation
This application uses the Water4allSDGs methodology, which is a configuration for the water and sanitation sector of the generic 4allSDGs© methodology for assessing the impact of an action on all the SDG targets of the 2030 Agenda.
Design and production: Gérard PAYEN
Current version: May 1, 2026
- In 2015, UN member states adopted their 2030 Agenda, an ambitious programme of action aimed at tackling all of humanity's greatest challenges by setting 169 targets to be achieved. These targets, known as SDG targets, have been grouped into 17 categories known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- The 4allSDGs methodology aims to enable the operational use of the targets of these Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by stakeholders who are not familiar with their 169 specific targets.
- This methodology produces digital tools that enable users who are not familiar with the details of the SDGs to easily identify and roughly assess the positive and negative impacts of an action on all the 169 targets of the global SDG framework.
- The 2030 Agenda forms a coherent system of targets that the international community aims to achieve simultaneously. The practical use of this framework therefore requires respect for its systemic nature and, consequently, consideration of the Agenda in its entirety, despite its breadth. The 4allSDGs methodology was developed for this purpose when the French Water Partnership, which had been involved in the development of the SDGs in 2012–2015, realised that its members were making very little operational use of them because they lacked a tool enabling them to overcome the complexity arising from the breadth of this Agenda.
- The 4allSDGs methodology complies with the 11 desirable characteristics of a methodology for analysing the impacts of policy options on the SDGs, as defined by the French Academies of Technology and Agriculture in 2020 and 2021.
- In practice, using an app from the 4allSDGs family enables an assessor to identify and evaluate the impacts of an initiative on the SDGs. But this approach has another effect: it gives the user a concrete understanding of what the systemic nature of the SDGs means, and helps him realise that the societal impact of an initiative extends far beyond its strictly sectoral scope.
- To enable a non-SDG specialist to identify the project's impacts on the SDGs, the Water4allSDGs© methodology provides hundredths of concrete situations in which the changes brought about by an action relating to water or sanitation contribute positively or negatively to SDG targets. These situations, known as 'impacting situations', have been predetermined by a group of experts in water, sanitation and the SDGs.
- The evaluator selects impacting situations that describe consequences similar to those of the project to be assessed.
- The evaluator then estimates how close the project is to each impacting situation described. This assessment does not require any knowledge of the SDO targets. It does, however, enable the application to identify the SDG targets impacted by the project and to roughly estimate the significance of these impacts by calculating a score.
- The targets positively and negatively impacted by the project are thus identified and the significance of these impacts can be easily visualised.
- In practice, the evaluator does not examine all the pre-identified situations because they are grouped by thematic sub-areas. The evaluator only considers the 1 to 4 areas concerned by the project, which considerably reduces the number of situations to be examined.
- Numerous 'topics' are pre-identified. Each one brings together a 'positive impacting situation' making a positive contribution to one or more of the SDG targets and an opposite situation known as a 'negative impacting situation' because it makes a negative contribution to these SDG targets.
- These subjects are structured into thematic areas called 'themes'. Each theme (or sub-theme) is the subject of a page listing all the 'topics' relating to that theme, with a statement for each 'impacting situation' having a positive contribution to the SDG targets and a statement for each 'impacting situation' having a negative contribution.
- The evaluator selects the relevant topics for the project and only those ones.
- by clicking on , 3 or 4 questions appear. By answering them, the assessor provides the information needed to evaluate the project in relation to these impacting situations. As soon as one of the corresponding factors is filled in (see §4 below), a coloured dot is displayed.
- A theme X allows the evaluator to add, if necessary, other situations contributing to the SDGs than the predetermined topics.
- The qualification work consists of answering 3 or 4 questions for each selected topic.
-
Question 1 (factor 1): importance of the change brought about by the project.
For measurable subjects, it is sufficient to indicate the order of magnitude of the positive or negative change brought about by the project. For other subjects, the evaluator estimates how close the actual case is to one of the positive or negative statements proposed. The application then determines a number of points, the maximum of which (obtained for the proposed positive impact situation) depends on the importance of the contribution to the SDG targets, according to the scale below:- Maximum score for direct contributions to an entire target (or a distinct part of a target)
- Score half or 2/3 of the maximum for partial direct contributions to the target (or a distinct part of the target) insufficient to ensure progress towards the target on their own
- Score 1/3 of the maximum for contributions to the success factors of the target (or distinct part of the target) - Indirect contributions
- Question 2 (factor 2): estimation of the size of the project on a scale linked to the nature of the subject analysed: number of people involved, size of the population of the area concerned, etc. This question provides a multiplier coefficient. So, for example, a project that benefits 1 million people scores more points than a project that benefits 1000 people of identical quality.
- Question 3 (factor 3): increase the score by 25%% if the positive contribution to the relevant SDG indicator is to be measured during project implementation.
- The score for each subject is calculated by multiplying the factors together and then normalising between -100 and +100.
- The evaluator enters in the 'justification' box the reasons for his/her assessment of the topic. This justification will appear in the final evaluation of the project.
- The score is only calculated if the 3 factors and the justification are filled in and recorded, which is visually shown by a green dot.
- Each of the identified topics contributes to one or more of the SDG targets.
- All topics contributing to a given target are consolidated, allowing a score to be calculated per SDG target.
- In order to take into account the diversity of projects, all subjects contributing to this target are considered with the same weight. The positive score of the target is then the highest score obtained for each subject contributing positively to it and its negative score is the lowest score of the subjects contributing negatively to it.
- Positive and negative scores are calculated for each SDG from the scores of its targets. The positive score of an SDG is the highest positive score obtained for each of its targets and its negative score is the lowest negative score of these.
- Similarly, positive and negative scores are determined for each theme. The positive score of the theme is then the highest score obtained for each of its subjects contributing positively to the SDGs and its negative score is the lowest score of the subjects contributing negatively.
- Horizontal bar graphs provide an easy way of summarising the contributions to the SDGs resulting from the evaluator's choices.
- Both a graph of scores listed by theme and a graph of scores listed by SDG can be made visible. In the latter, SDG6 on Water and sanitation is broken down target by target. The graph by theme allows the evaluator to check that his choices have been taken into account, but has no particular significance.
- The graph listed by SDG is a synthetic visualisation of the project's contributions to the SDGs. It allows to immediately identify the SDG targets positively or negatively impacted by the project. It also gives an indication of the respective importance of these impacts.
- The application provides details of all contributions to the SDGs in the form of lists of impacts on 'impacted' targets. A list classified by theme and a list classified by SDG are available. The subjects are noted by their codes. Clicking on a code gives details of the subject and its assessment.
- Outputs in the form of downloaded PDF files bring together the results of the project evaluation, reproducing horizontal bar graphs and details of all contributions to all the SDG targets.