Sustainable Development

“LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND”

The Paris agreement presents an action plan to save people and nation and invest in future generation. The 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the SDGs are an actor plan for people, our planet and shared prosperity.

This action plan represent a shared vision and collective responsibility that involve all nations committed to achieve the goal. And the goal is the world we aspire to by 2030. This is not a dream, this is strategy and action plan to implement with the adoption of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, all nations committed to a set of universal, integrated and transformational goals and targets, the sustainable Development goal SDG 17 goals and 169 targets. By signing the agreement, countries are committed to pursue policy coherence and an enabling environment for SustainableDevelopment at all levels and by all actors.

To enhance policy coherence to take into account the effect of policies on the sustainable development and people living in other countries and of future generation. This mean new way of doing things, and there are a lot of approach for enhancing policy coherence. There is “no formula ready to be used”, there are different approaches, visions, models and tools available to each country, and each approach must be considered depending on national circumstances and priorities some countries already started working to define policy coherence. By developing national strategies, adopting institutional frameworks and shifting policies to achieve the goals.

Based on the experience of nine countries members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and development(OECD) it is important to highlight emerging good practices. The initial steps shows wide variety of starting points and implementation path. The report provided by Switzerland, Korea, Norway, Turkey and other countries highlight the emerging of good practices.

The OECD organization listed 8 key building blocks for enhancing policy coherence in the implementation in order to ensure that NO ONE left behind.

1. Political commitment and leadership to guide whole of government action and translate on the SDGs into concrete and coherent measure at the local national and international levels.
2. Integrated approaches to implementation to consider systematically inter-linkage between economic, social and environmental policy areas before making decision.
3. Intergenerational time frame to make informed choices about sustainable development considering the long term impact of policy decision on the well-being of the future generation.
4. Analyses and assessment of potential policies effect to provide evidence on the potential negative or positive impact on the well-being of people in other countries, and inform decision making.
5. Policy and institutional coordination to resolve conflict of interest on inconsistencies between priorities and policy.
6. Local and regional involvement to deliver the economic, social, and environmental transformation needed for achieving the SDGs.
7. Stakeholder participation to make sure that SDG are owned by people diverse action are aligned and resource and knowledge for sustainable development are mobilized.
8. Monitoring and reporting to better understand where there has been progress why there has or has not been progress and where further action is needed.

There is no one-size-fits-all formula for ensuring a more integrated and coherent implementation. The key finding include ending poverty in all its form and dimensions. Achieving progress on poverty, for example is linked with global food security and improve nutrition, that address anessential human need. Today more than 800M people remain food insecure. Increasing agricultural productivity is central to ensuring food availability, but a large share of the world’s agricultural production is based on the unsustainable exploitation of water, marine and land resources.

Progress in health is dependent on economic, social and environmental progress in other areas such as poverty and food security. Education is linked with clean water achieving gender equality is a foundation for prosperity and sustainable development a prerequisite for the health of the societies and a key driver of economic growth.

Infrastructure, industrialization and innovation are key components for achieving sustainable development. The ocean provide resources and service toaddressthe economic, social and environmental challenges. Those are only few example of SDGs. Policy makers cannottake strategic decisions without a clean understanding of the complex interactions between the different SDGs. Ensuring policy coherence for sustainable development is a responsibility shared across a wide chain of actors, including governments, the private sector, civil society, NGOs and citizen.