Abstract
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development gives equal emphasis to developed (“Northern”) countries and developing (“Southern”) countries. Thus, implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) demands coherent collaboration to transform society across all countries. Yet, there has been little research published on SDG partnerships and this is the first study to explore the extent to which partners from Northern and Southern countries are involved in them and their focus. It identifies that involvement is unequally distributed and may perpetuate the North–South divide in countries’ resources, including access to data and scientific capacities. Most notably, partners from low-income countries are involved in far fewer partnerships than partners from countries in all other World Bank income categories, although the former are least able to develop sustainably. As such, all those promoting sustainable development from governmental, private and third-sector organisations need to address global inequalities in establishing and implementing SDG partnerships if, collectively, they are to facilitate delivery of Agenda 2030.
Highlights
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development gives equal emphasis to developed (“Northern”) countries and developing (“Southern”) countries
Our study highlights that the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), through partnerships, is not distributed globally and may, perpetuate the existing North–South divide
To fully address Agenda 2030, all those involved in encouraging and establishing partnerships for SDGs need to address challenges posed by existing global inequalities in the design and implementation of partnerships
Summary
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development gives equal emphasis to developed (“Northern”) countries and developing (“Southern”) countries. There has been little research published on SDG partnerships and this is the first study to explore the extent to which partners from Northern and Southern countries are involved in them and their focus It identifies that involvement is unequally distributed and may perpetuate the North–South divide in countries’ resources, including access to data and scientific capacities. The negative consequences of the divide for how science is designed, produced and communicated and how action on the ground is implemented have been highlighted at all scales from international to local[4,5] and across various themes and sectors[6,7,8,9] It leads to policy development and implementation shaped by a Northern agenda rather than the needs and priorities of Southern c ountries[5,8], preventing global sustainable development and, thereby, fulfilment of Agenda 2030. Our analyses use data collected from the UN’s SDG Partnerships Platform
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