Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals: The case of Tanzania

Abstract

Motivation: Despite increasing research on the United Nations' 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is a lack of attention to the role of political institutions in localizing the SDGs. By exploring localization of the 2030 Agenda in a concrete political context, we go beyond prior research that mainly studies interlinkages and discourses underpinning the agenda. Purpose: This article explores political qualities of localization processes through three analytical concepts that bring such qualities to the forelegitimacy, responsibility and accountability. We investigate localization attempts with regard to the 2030 Agenda in Tanzania, aiming to identify drivers and obstacles of localization. Approaches and Methods: The article provides an explorative case study based on policy document review and 28 semi-structured interviews with civil servants, parliamentarians, representatives from civil society organizations, the UN and other international agencies in Dar es Salaam and Dodoma between 2017 and 2019. Findings: Elements of localization are policy alignment at the national level, work with statistics and indicators, and awareness creation among a variety of actors. Drivers of localization are the government, civil society organizations, the UN, members of parliament and demands for review at the UN High-level Political Forum. Obstacles to localization are unclear allocation of responsibility, insufficient coordination , high turnaround of people in key positions, a lack of data availability, low awareness of the SDGs among citizens, a shortage of resources and shrinking democratic space. Policy Implications: We posit that a clear allocation of responsibility facilitates implementation and ensuing accountability measures. For localization to occur, knowledge of the SDGs must reach beyond a limited circle of elites. Moreover, it is important to acknowledge that sustainable development is a politically charged field. Political institutions at all levels should therefore be central arenas for debating and adopting the 2030 Agenda as part of its localization.

SDGs mainstreaming at the local level: case studies from Japan

“…Numerous challenges relating to SDGs mainstreaming at the local level have been identified. These challenges include a lack of coordination in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda at international, national, and local levels; fragmented responsibility and ambiguous accountability; weak motivation; limited data sets for conducting monitoring and evaluation activities, including setting indicators; insufficient human and financial resources; and a lack of multi-stakeholder partnerships and consideration of synergies and trade-offs (Lucci 2015;Slack 2015;Reddy 2016;Fenton and Gustafsson 2017;Satterthwaite 2017;Zinkernagel et al 2018;Hartley 2019;Jones and Comfort 2019;Krellenberg et al 2019;Jönsson and Bexell 2020). The literature on the localization of the SDGs has highlighted the importance of multilevel governance and the deployment of collaborative and rational approaches (Fenton and Gustafsson 2017).…”

Can Agenda 2030 bring about “localization”? Policy limitations of Agenda 2030 in the broader global governance system

“…This discursive shift further legitimizes critical approaches to international development, whose traditional mechanisms are emerging as inadequate, given the increasingly clear control HICs exercise over financial resources and, by extension, policy priorities. Building on Jönsson and Bexell's (2021) theorizing of legitimacy within processes of localization, these findings prove that Agenda 2030's not only emerged as legitimate-its process of domestication further delegitimized other outdated development frameworks.…”

“…As such, localization is not only tied to the cascading of policy frameworks through national and local plans, it is also process‐oriented, focusing on legitimacy, responsibility, and accountability. As Jönsson and Bexell (2021) argue, legitimacy is a fluid, perception‐based, and empirically ascertained element of the policy process; responsibility is linked to the institutional mandates to operationalize specific policy elements, and accountability emerges as directly related to the institutional mechanisms of proving the achievement of responsibilities. Their framework of localization is particularly adapted to Agenda 2030, given (1) the attention the framework received at the normative and political levels (through the approval via the UN General Assembly); (2) the explicit recognition of sovereign states as responsibility bearers but also highlighting the importance of multi‐stakeholder approaches; and (3) with the clear linkages between goals, targets, and indicators and reporting processes aimed at strengthening accountability.…”

“…Localization goes a step further, reaching local (as opposed to just national) actors but also resulting in effective shifts of decision-making, resource control, and overall framing of development priorities (Jönsson & Bexell, 2021). This is a reversal of prioritized perspectives: global systems are expected to adapt to local solutions, as opposed to local actors being challenged to adapt to global mechanisms of international assistance.…”

Realizing the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development – engaging national parliaments?

“…The monitoring functions of parliament are less likely to be invoked for scrutinizing national realization if parliament has not obtained a basic level of political ownership of the 2030 Agenda (cf. Jönsson and Bexell 2020). In the longer run, it remains to be seen whether the 2030 Agenda exemplifies the general de-parliamentarization of modern politics, pointed to in earlier research on national parliaments in West European countries such as Sweden (e.g.…”