The Politics of the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

This book draws attention to political aspects of sustainable development goal-setting, exploring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the global-national nexus during their first five years.After broad global deliberation and political negotiations, the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs were adopted in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 2015, and by now many countries have political structures in place for working towards their realisation. This book explores three concepts to call attention to the political qualities of processes related to the SDGs: legitimacy, responsibility, and accountability. Legitimacy is required to obtain broad political ownership for policy goals in order for them to become effective in addressing cross-border sustainability challenges. Responsibility needs to be clearly distributed among political institutions if a long-term set of broad goals such as the SDGs are to be realised. Accountability to the public is the retrospective mirror of political responsibility. The Politics of the Sustainable Development Goals contributes new knowledge on political processes at the nexus of global and national levels, focussing on three countries at different levels of socio-economic development and democratisation: namely Ghana, Tanzania, and Sweden. These countries illustrate a variety of challenges related to the realisation of the SDGs. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable development, international organisations, and global politics.

Politics and the sustainable development goals: Tourism Agenda 2030 perspective article

“…However, is a tourism system that is based upon a policy focused on growth in visitor numbers possible to make sustainable, especially post COVID-19? (Bexell and Jo ¨nsson, 2021). These are not economic or technical questions, they are political ones, because the SDGs are the outcomes of a political process, and their implementation is inherently political as well.…”

“…Rather, goal attainment necessitates political prioritizations and will include goal conflicts, paving the way for more political contestation. In addition, the 2030 Agenda does not enter a void at the national level but encounters a pre-existing political setting with its own set of values, interests and power relationships between actors (Bexell and Jo ¨nsson, 2021).…”

“…The sustainable development goals (SDGs), which were adopted in 2015 after three years of multi-stakeholder consultations and intergovernmental negotiations, provide an integrated and universal policy agenda to be implemented by 2030 to guide public policies and inspire societal actors to promote sustainable development. The SDGs replaced the millennium development goals (MDGs) that guided development policy from 2000 to 2015 by merging the agendas of development and environment and renewed and expanded development both conceptually and spatially (the "what" and "where" of development) (Bexell and Jo ¨nsson, 2021).…”

Four governance reforms to strengthen the SDGs

“…Whereas some SDGs, such as health (SDG 3), can build on strong international organizations and national agencies, other areas are barely institutionalized, notably the goals on reducing inequality (SDG 10), responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), and strengthening of institutions and governance (SDG 16). Moreover, various UN agencies act as custodians for individual SDGs, with responsibilities being widely spread among ministries and local institutions (10,11).…”

How to Know if Land Management is Responsible? Evaluating the 8R Framework of Responsible Land Management

“…Responsible and accountable behavior and felt and practiced accountability of individual actors are thus part of the notion of responsibility and responsible governance. Similarly, Bexell & Jönsson (2021) define responsibility as an obligation or a duty related to a role in which an actor has to take a specific action. This responsibility depends on the role politics and society demand, which is continuously reshaped and remodeled due to the dynamic nature of politics and society.…”