Blog Post #9: Finding the right balance for SDG action
How do we make Sustainable Development a reality? How do we accelerate action towards Sustainable Development? Who are the most important stakeholders in this process? These are some of the questions that we have been reflecting on recently.
In the workshops we have been lucky to be talking to experts from the Pacific and Australia about these topics. One of the consistent themes we have recently noticed is around the question of stakeholders. Specifically, whether Sustainable Development will be brought about by powerful decision-makers or a groundswell of public action and who amongst these stakeholders are more likely to accelerate action towards achieving Sustainable Development.
This is a tension that can also be found in the international and community development sectors as well as other areas such as health care and governance. More formally we can think of this as top-down or bottom-up approaches. Top-down approaches, tend to be based based on micro- and macroeconomic theories, but lack flexibility and ‘place-awareness’ to respond to local complexity. Alternatively, bottom-up approaches are much more responsive to diverse local needs, but can miss of a clear conceptual framework or “big picture plan”.
The Global Sustainable Development Goals framework was created using a mixture of these approaches. High level political negotiations and well as an unprecedented global consultative process were used to assist in the creation a framework of goals, targets and indicators.
Now the framework consists of a set of 17 goals, 169 targets and 232 indicators that can be applied to any context, but are not fully applicable in every context. Finding a way to navigate between the universal framing of the SDGs and what is needed on the ground is challenging but integral to the implementation of the SDGs.
This challenge has been addressed in various ways in the theories, frameworks and practical guides related to the Sustainable Development Goals, including the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report.
The GSDR balances to the top down and bottom up approach through its framework of entry points and levers. The framework distils the goals, targets and indicators down to six entry points and four levers. We think of the entry points as the doors which we must open to action the SDGs. Alternatively the levers are the handles of the doors: a handle makes it a lot easier, and much faster, to open the door, so we use the levers to unlock the pathway to success. Looking at the levers, we can see the top-down perspective in the governance lever and the bottom-up perspective in the individual and collective action lever.
GSDR 2019 Levers: A brief explainer
Is one of these approaches more important than the other?
In the workshops, we have found a diversity of perspectives on this topic. To provoke discussion, in our workshops, we are ask participants to rank the importance of the four levers.
We’ve found that the ranking – most important to least important – is hotly contested and, generally the debate is between the levers of governance and individual and collective action. At the moment, we would say that the governance lever is, marginally, the preferred lever.
Within this debate we can see a few key ideas and themes, which we outline below.
Individual and collective action is positioned as a way to accelerate action and ensure that the Sustainable Development Goals are achieved.
I put Individual and collective action first and Governance third. It's individuals and collectives that are going to need to drive these various issues, whether it be at the community level, in the village, at the national level, subregional, regional. We can put in places many policies. But if there is to be action we need a will to move as a collective on certain issues.”
Obviously the good governance and leadership at the government level is critical, and we try and involve the CSOs and the NGOs in the national consultations, but really they have played a much smaller part than they should have. And if we look at the coping mechanisms during COVID, it was really those civil society organisations that propped up the shortfalls in what the government could do at the time. So that's why I promoted that collective action, because I see in the future that has the potential to contribute a bigger, I guess, acceleration towards the achievement.”
Alternatively, governance is seen as providing the foundation for all action.
I understand this is a people-centred strategy and for any policy document strategy any country develops, it is people-centred, but I think to me at the forefront is structure. You've got to have parameters. You've got to have rules. You've got to have boundaries. Governance, it's not just political, it encompasses all of that. Not to be rigid, but I think that it's basically the rules of engagement.”
“In the Pacific, much activity is driven by the national authorities, because the private sector is not so great in the region. So therefore, having good governance and strong governance and strong leadership is really critical to make things happen.”
Of course, this is a bit of an artificial exercise as these approaches can both be important at different times.
“It depends on where you are in the development spectrum. For example, your priorities and issues will evolve over the development spectrum.”
“I think all of these things are really important. And a lot of the research that we've been doing, trying to review the latest literature on the SDGs and on transformations and pathways and how countries can accelerate progress on the SDGs, sort of relies on effective combinations of these levers to shift development trajectories towards sustainable development.”
What do we take from this?
Well, it seems to us that there is a need to consider both of these approaches.
Whilst all pacific countries have produced Voluntary National Reviews, there are currently no published Voluntary Local Reviews. Making the Sustainable Development Goals more accessible to cities and communities could be the first step in activating individual and collective action.
Perhaps, moving forward, Sustainable Development initiatives in the Pacific, and elsewhere, should look for opportunities to ensure local voices and local actions are prioritised. As one of our participants recently noted:
For me, at the end of the day, we have to remember that this whole development agenda is about people and we need to keep people front and center of all the work that we are doing when we making reference to the SDG's, but also policy decision making needs to be informed by the issues that are happening on the ground. There needs to be national relevance. There needs to be a very inclusive process of consultations, multi stakeholder partnerships that are effective and durable. Our development solutions need to be realistic. They need to be sustainable. They need to have impact. We have to move away from this sort of project approach to a more programmatic, long term sustainable approach that's focused very much on effective outcomes. At the end of the day, ensuring we've all heard listened and that we are leaving no one behind.”
What do you think? Is there a need to balance or emphasis top-down or bottom-up approaches? We’d love to hear your thoughts!