The emerging accountability regimes for the Sustainable Development Goals and policy integration: Friend or foe?

Abstract

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the full Agenda 2030 in which they are embedded are aspirational and intended to be both transformational and integrative in a number of ways. The need for integration across policy domains is stressed throughout the agenda. The Sustainable Development Goals are also accompanied by an emerging system for follow-up and review centered on a long list of indicators that are intended to enable countries to be accountable towards their citizens. There is, however, in the accountability literature indication that some accountability mechanisms can be counterproductive for integrative policies. This paper is centered around the question whether an accountability regime, and if so how, is compatible with a high degree of policy integration both conceptually and in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. We approach this question through looking both at the literature on integrative governance and some of the central concepts it covers such as (environmental) policy integration and mainstreaming, and the accountability literature. This enables us to provide an analytical framework for evaluating the potential of the emerging accountability regimes for the Sustainable Development Goals to enhance more integrated policy making and action. We conclude that there are little or no strong hierarchical elements of accountability relationships at the global level which can be good news for more integrative policies – but only if there is a strong sense of shared responsibility among actors at all levels, available information on the types of behavioural efforts that support integration, and accountholders that take an active interest in integration. At the national level, there may be hierarchical accountability mechanisms with sanction possibilities that may discourage integration. Here, those who hold actors to account can counteract this if they have deeper understanding of the underlying interlinkages among the goals and targets, and based on this, engage in accountability mechanisms.

Sociohydrology: Scientific Challenges in Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals

“…If on the one hand enhancing policy coherence for sustainable development is a key concern in the SDGs project (Target 17.14.1), on the other hand most complex and politically contentious trade‐offs have been glossed over in the international negotiations (Nilsson et al, ). Consequently, the multiple ways in which goals and dimensions of sustainability are interdependent are not explicitly discussed (Karlsson‐Vinkhuyzen et al, ). As aptly illustrated by Alcamo (: 126), acting on synergies and trade‐offs requires not only political will but also knowledge about their origin and characteristics .…”

Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals: The case of Tanzania

“…We contribute an understanding of responsibility that takes institutional arrangements and temporality into account by distinguishing between forward‐looking obligations and retrospective accountability (Bexell & Jönsson, 2016). And while several publications underline the importance of accountability through SDG targets and indicators (Karlsson‐Vinkhuyzen et al, 2018), or raise challenges of quantitative review of sustainable development (Kanie & Biermann, 2017), few analyse accountability through political institutions taking into consideration the interplay between globally and nationally driven policy processes. Thus far, only a few studies have used the concept of localization in relation to the SDGs.…”

Integrative governance: The relationships between governance instruments taking center stage

“…They examine the IG concepts of mainstreaming, EPI, and coherence. Mainstreaming “involves taking a specific objective of one issue domain and declaring that this objective should be integrated into other issue domains” (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen et al., 2018). With this, it is a normative concept, arguing to prioritize certain issues, for example the environment, biodiversity, gender, climate change, or human rights.…”