Initial progress in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): a review of evidence from countries

By Cameron Allen, Graciela I. Metternicht, T. Wiedmann. Sustainability Science, 2018

527 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) commenced in 2016 and provide an evidence-based framework for sustainable development planning and programming until 2030. There is emerging international practice and a growing catalogue of related reviews, assessments, guidelines and publications. While the expert community is clearly emphasising the need to adopt evidence- and science-based approaches to SDG implementation, policymakers now face the challenge of implementing the SDGs simultaneously in a coherent and integrated manner. Regular systematic reviews of national progress and approaches to implementing the SDGs are advisable to ensure that emerging science and knowledge is effectively informing national practice. This paper reviews the recent academic and expert literature as well as national experience in implementing the SDGs in 26 countries. It uses a systematic approach to analyse the degree to which key implementation stages and approaches recommended in the expert literature are being adopted and applied to support national SDG implementation on-the-ground. The review highlights that while progress has been made in some initial planning stages, key gaps remain in terms of the assessment of interlinkages, trade-offs and synergies between targets. Gaps are also clearly evident in the adoption of systems thinking and integrated analytical approaches and models. This is problematic as it may undermine effective implementation and the transformative potential of the SDGs. As more countries turn their attention to the SDGs, the review underscores the considerable risk that they will pursue the same ‘siloed’ or ‘linear’ approaches to sustainable development that have met with limited success in the past.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Pollution, Water Science and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/797eeeabe6bfc4ac5aa9d4246a0299ed3ad5ef44

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

1. Arnold Tukker
2. Reinout Heijungs
3. A. de Koning

In Pollution

1. Dalia Streimikiene
2. Arnold Tukker
3. Reinout Heijungs

In Water Science and Technology

1. Arnold Tukker
2. Reinout Heijungs
3. A. de Koning

Citations in the corpus

• Aligning the Criteria of Green Economy (GE) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to Implement Sustainable Development (2019, background): “Th SDGs framework in lude 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 indicators that undoubtedly have unclear interconnections, contributory interactions, and reaction loops [27].”
• Mapping the Sustainable Development Goals Relationships (2020, background): “The results suggest that the understanding of the relationships between the SDGs remains limited [20].”
• Trade-offs between social and environmental Sustainable Development Goals (2018, background): “As such, the interactions weaken the effectiveness of their implementation (Allen et al., 2018).”
• Translating Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Interdependencies into Policy Advice (2019, background): “In addition to advice regarding priority-setting, this will also include advancing possible and necessary institutional reforms to achieve better-integrated policymaking and to advance skills necessary science-based approaches towards SDG implementation [47].”