The UN Sustainable Development Goals as innovation drivers for local sustainability governance? Examples from Germany

Abstract

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments and suggestions.

‘New Wine in Old Wineskins?’—Understanding the Framing of SDGs in the Local Government Context in Ghana

“…The study notes that multi-level government coordination is necessary to enable cities and local governments to address all aspects of the comprehensive SDG agenda. Related studies like Jones and Comfort (2020), Raffer et al (2022) and Valencia et al (2019) also suggest that inadequate national government leadership in SDG localization impacts the localization efforts of local governments.…”

“…Framing the SDGs as a facilitator of local development implies ‘new wine in old wineskins’, where the innovations embedded in the SDGs, the ‘new wine’, are applied to existing systems of development, the ‘old wineskins’. Evidence on localization in other contexts highlights similar trends of SDG implementation that are harnessed to emphasize existing development tenets, including partnerships (Masuda et al, 2021), inclusivity (Horn and Grugel, 2018) and sustainable local governance (Raffer et al, 2022). The framing aligns with the rationale for the SDGs, which includes harnessing the unique contributions of various countries and development contexts to enhance global development.…”