What is your Sustainable Development Guide?

It is our rearranged view of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as one connected journey. We group them into Survive, Thrive and Outward so communities can move step by step from meeting basic needs to caring for others and the planet.

Do you work across all of Uganda?

Uganda is making strong progress in its development. We focus on remote farming villages in the north where people are most vulnerable. We actively seek out those who have been left behind so they can reach the first step where basic needs are met.

How do you use mapping and satellite data?

We use GIS and Earth Observation to map food, water, health and education. This shows where people are still surviving, where they are starting to thrive and what each village needs next.

From 17 Goals to 1 Clear Guide

Using the SDGs as a guide, not a checklist

Created in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were designed to address poverty, hunger, inequality, poor health, environmental damage and conflict, and to ensure that no one is left behind.

They are made up of 17 Goals, 169 targets and 234 indicators. Progress is measured through data and reporting and the world remains far from achieving them.

In practice, the SDGs often assume that progress can happen across many goals at the same time, or in no particular order. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shows that this is not how change actually happens.

We use Maslow’s hierarchy alongside the SDGs to help us focus our attention and prioritise our work, starting with basic needs and building from there.

From global goals to village realities

Uganda is a country that is moving forward. The economy is growing, education is improving and development is reaching many parts of the country.

But some places have been left behind.

In parts of northern Uganda, decades of conflict, climate shocks and COVID disrupted lives, livelihoods and the passing of knowledge between generations. Many families are still rebuilding from the beginning, focused on meeting their most basic needs such as food, shelter and clean water.

This is where our work has always focused.

Grounded in experience

Seeds for Development has worked with communities in northern Uganda since 2008.

Our work has always focused on meeting basic needs first: food, health, education and clean water, guided by what communities tell us matters most. Over time, we recognised that this followed the same underlying logic set out by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, later known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Progress happens in stages, and survival comes before growth.

How we use the SDGs

Our approach is inspired by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, shown in the triangle above.

We apply this same thinking to the SDGs and instead of treating the 17 goals as separate priorities, we use them as one connected guide, organised into three stages that reflect how communities develop.

1. Survive

SDGs 1 to 6

Meeting basic needs such as food, health, education, clean water and gender equality.

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2. Thrive

SDGs 7 to 12

Access to energy, building livelihoods, skills, local enterprise, stronger communities and sustainable production.

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3. Look Outward

SDGs 13 to 17

Caring for land and water, addressing climate challenges, building peace and working in partnership.

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This framework helps us understand where a village is starting from and what support will make the biggest difference next.

Seeds for Development in northern Uganda

In northern Uganda, development happens at parish and village level.

Farmers depend on rain, hand tools and knowledge passed down through generations. We help bridge global frameworks and local realities, using technology and data where they add value, but always starting with the needs on the ground.

By using the SDGs as a guide, we can plan, prioritise and track progress in a way that is practical, human and scalable.

Why this matters

The SDGs give the world a shared language for development.

Our Sustainable Development Guide makes that language usable in real places.

It helps ensure that support is appropriate, well-timed and focused on building strong foundations first.