Sustainable development goals and the European Cohesion Policy: an application to the autonomous Region of Sardinia

Abstract

Paramount to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the effective tackling of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) is the cooperation and coordination of the different levels of government—i.e. the supranational, national and local levels. This is due to the very nature of the SDGs, which are multi-dimensional and intended to guide and boost sustainable development at multiple scales. The European Union (EU) demonstrated a full commitment to the Agenda, making sustainable development a top priority. In fact, the five strategic objectives of the EU are modelled on the principles of the 2030 Agenda and the Cohesion Policy, EU’s most transversal policy, is designed to give a direct contribution to the tackling of the 17 SDGs. Introducing a new methodology to evaluate the sustainability of operational programmes co-financed by the EU, the following paper aims to contribute to the building literature around the question of monitoring public investments regarding sustainability criteria. By matching the 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda with the 143 intervention fields of the Cohesion Policy, with specific reference to Sardinia’s European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund 2014–2020 Regional Operational Programmes, the present work introduces the key features of the model developed and its first results. The model could be of valuable support to policymakers who now have an innovative tool to monitor investments’ coherence with the sustainability standards of the 2030 Agenda.

Localizing the 2030 Agenda at the Regional Level through the European Cohesion Policy: An Application to the Region of Sardinia

“…In this regard, RAS and FEEM have launched a joint research project specifically aimed at developing and implementing a model for assessing the sustainability of the Regional Operational Programmes (ROPs) [15,16]. The project took inspiration from the model developed by RAS in the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) procedure of the 2014-2020 ROPs [17], in line with the methodology introduced by the European Commission [12].…”

“…The authors investigated the interconnections between the 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda and the CPR funds' 182 intervention fields [10] (in the above-cited previous publications [15,16], only 143 intervention fields were considered in the analysis) through the creation of three matrices: the first one captures the type of impact, classified as null, indirect, or direct; the second one describes the orientation and the magnitude of the impact (negative or positive; null, very low, low, medium, and high); and the last one is the product of the aforementioned matrices.…”

Progress on SDG 7 achieved by EU countries in relation to the target year 2030: A multidimensional indicator analysis using dynamic relative taxonomy

“…Cavalli et al [ 69 ] propose a model-based approach to evaluating the sustainability of the EU regional operational programme (ROP) in terms of SDGs, which is based on a synthetic sustainability index representing the part of ROP resources that contribute to the 2030 Agenda in relation to the total ROP resources. The usefulness of composite indicators has been demonstrated by [ 10 ], who compared the utility of the Multiple Reference Point Weak-Strong Composite Indicators (MRP-WSCI) and its partially compensatory version (MRP-PCI) for assessing the sustainability of EU countries according to the framework of the 2030 Agenda.…”

OECD toolkit for a territorial approach to the SDGs

“…A distinctive feature of Los Angeles is close engagement with the academic sector in its localisation efforts (OECD, 2020 [1] ). Academic partnerships have been a key component since Los Angeles began working on the SDGs in 2017 -mainly via the support of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and the Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles (Bromaghim and Kim, 2020 [47] ). The first university partner was Occidental College (Oxy), followed by the Hilton Summer Scholars Program at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), supporting students engaged in sustainable development fieldwork.…”

“…Since 2017, the city has engaged over 160 students in these various constructs. The case of Los Angeles shows that partnering with universities on the SDGs offers the city access to capacity and an outside perspective, whilst providing students with an opportunity for service-based learning and applied research (Bromaghim and Kim, 2020 [47] ).…”