Abstract
Since the approval of the Agenda 2030, researchers and policy makers have pointed out the need to understand interactions among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—suggesting that progress or the lack of progress toward one goal will affect other goals through systemic interactions, producing synergies and trade-offs. However, most of the methods used to account for these interactions rely on hard systems thinking approaches, which are limited by the absence of needed data below national levels. Moreover, a general lack of data also constrains the scope of analysis to the 17 Goals, ignoring their 169 underlying targets. Given these challenges, we report on an experiment using an example of a soft systems thinking methodology: the SDG Synergies approach, which is based not only on available information but also on the elicitation of stakeholder and expert opinions. Thus, the approach allows for analysis of target-to-target interactions at subnational scales. The study, the first of its kind, assessed interactions at two scales: the national level in Colombia and the subnational level in the department of Antioquia. The results reveal profound differences between the two scales, suggesting that national-scale analysis of SDG interlinkages is not certain to capture local-level realities. The findings raise important issues for understanding and managing cross-scale interactions. Our work suggests that soft systems thinking is more appropriate for assessing SDG interactions because such an approach lends itself to conducting target-level analysis at various scales in the face of limited data availability.
Highlights
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a set of 169 targets grouped within 17 goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to address the significant socioenvironmental challenges facing the world (UN, 2016)
Having argued for the use of soft systems thinking approaches to understanding SDG interactions, we explore how prominent these are within the literature emerging on the subject
Understanding the synergies and trade-offs of the interactions among the Sustainable Development Goals requires thinking about the ramifications at the specific scales where implementation occurs to achieve the aims of individual targets, SDGs, and the full menu of elements of the 2030 Agenda
Summary
The implication is that the tenets of analysis of interconnected systems should apply to efforts to implement Agenda 2030 This interconnected approach significantly complicates policymaking, as the orientation of development trajectories over the coming decade would need to consider possible trade-offs and synergies between SDGs, and related policies and plans, to ensure policy coherence, respecting the Agenda’s integrated and indivisible nature (Nilsson & Weitz, 2019; Weitz et al, 2018). Other recent publications report on the application of predictive models to simulate the future co-evolution of socioeconomic indicators pegged to specific SDGs, based on the observed evolution of these indicators through time (e.g., Collste et al, 2017; Dörgo et al, 2018; Ospina-Forero et al, 2020; Pradhan et al, 2017; Spaiser et al, 2017) We identify these methods as hard systems thinking approaches, as they seek to quantify interlinkages based on quantitative models of causation within SDG interactions and derived from observed spillover effects. The data used typically serve as proxies for the 17 broad goals, rather than for the 169 specific targets
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