Why integrated SDG policy advice* is the litmus test for the UN development system reform…
2020 saw the launch of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, its target date. To reach this milestone, the world needed to accelerate responses to the great challenges. The 2020 SDG report made it already clear that the world was not on track to achieve the goals by 2030. Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, progress had been uneven. Now, with the pandemic continuing, progress has stalled, and, in some cases, decades of progress have been reversed.
What will get the 2030 Agenda back on track? What can a world battling a pandemic do to move forward? How can recovery advance, not undercut, the goal of sustainable development? To get back on track, it needs to be understood that SDGs work as an indivisible system and works best if synergies are identified. A danger of prioritizing individual SDGs is indeed that the world may lose sight of the integrated character of the 2030 Agenda. Moving from our programmatic support to integrated policy advice was one of the key objectives of the UN development system repositioning in 2019.
New tools to look at the SDGs as an indivisible system were made available, including the new Common Country Analysis and Cooperation Framework guidance, Integrated National Financing Frameworks (the framework outlining how to finance national sustainable development priorities and the SDGs at the country level), renewed focus on human rights, gender and Leave No One Behind and more.
Have those tools made a difference in our efforts towards integrated policy advice? From a back of the envelope analysis, we see some interesting signs that the UN development system is indeed moving into the right direction. Our newest common country analysis is the first big shift. And while this is just the start, it is key as the crucial starting point to ensure all the UN’s actions is based on better integrated analysis. In the past the common country analysis read very much as a compilation of siloed thematic analyses stapled nicely together to never be looked at again. No longer, the new generation common country analyses look at the country’s challenges in a much more integrated manner (read also here). Education is not looked at from one angle only. What’s the impact of poverty on access to education, how does inequality influences this, is there a gender component, or a governance component? Climate action is probably most evident as it is very clear that this is at the same time a governance, an education, a health, a consumption and a production issue, and many more at the same time. But our strengthened analysis has not yet quite translated it fully into integrated solutions (or in the language of the cooperation framework into strategic priorities and outcomes).
What could move the needle further to truly come to integrated policy advice? Or in other words, what’s needed to ensure the UN development system — with its limited budget of 18 billion USD — limited when compared to the total amount of financial public, private, national and international resources available globally — tackles challenges in an integrated manner to get greater impact across all SDGs and not just one SDG or a subset of SDGs?
1. There is an increased need to adjust the funding model of the UN development system, which is largely driven by project funding, very often earmarked for specific areas. Project funding has the advantage that we can quickly show some results. What we need to do now or at least within the next couple of years is adopting the policies that will put us on a path to sustainable development by 20xx (fill in the x depending on the country). This requires funding for in-depth expertise that might not generate instant photo worthy moment. It will inevitably take a lot longer before we see the impact of new regulations that are adopted today. Maybe not even in the first 3 to 5 years. Development has always been a longer term effort, which is where the distinction with humanitarian support comes in very clearly.
2. To support countries with high level policy advice, we need experts, good experts! The UN’s labour force — driven by our project funding — is very unbalanced towards project based and/or programmatic support. Policy experts in — often extremely specialized areas — are much harder to find in our organigrams. Reconsidering the future of the UN’s labour force will require time, but now is the time to start making a gradual shift.
3. Governments are still struggling with SDG integration due to their institutional set-ups which are not always aligned to the SDG thinking. Ministries of agriculture, ministries of health, ministries of education, etcetera often work within their specific areas, have clear deliverables that are focused within their thematic silos and interlinkages are not promoted due to how many institutions have historically grown. National SDG platforms or partnerships platforms are one option to tackle some of these challenges (for an overview of how different countries have done this, check here) but explaining that the SDGs are more than a colorful poster might require some additional work with all our partners.
4. Reconciling cross border or regional work with the country level work remains difficult. It continues to be challenging to find ways to ensure the regional and country interact well and complement each other, without duplication and double-counting. Many problems (think environment, fisheries, pollution, migration) can not be solved through a national lens alone, and need a cross border, sub-regional or regional approach. Take the example where countries are trying to find an agreement to ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks. This could only be done through the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. A national initiative would have been meaningless. But even regional initiatives at some point have to come back to the country level for implementation, closing the circle once more. So how do we manage these dynamics in a way that attributes results fairly to the country versus the regional level?
5. Member states need to coherently outline their expectations of a multilateral development system. More and more we see coherence across different governing boards of the UN agencies, funds and programmes. The augmented focus by Member States (at the country level and in the boards) on cooperation frameworks, as the collective offer of the UN to the country level for example, is helping to increase the quality of those strategic frameworks. That is a big shift from where the main focus was on the entity and not looking at the totality of the UN’s contribution to development. Next part of this discussion should focus on the expectations of the totality of the multilateral system. How can we ensure better coherence with the World Bank, IMF and others?
6. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. The incentives and reward system for entities to work in an integrated manner with colleagues from another entity is limited. When a crisis hits the country, UN staff are working hand in hand to get the job done as we see with the COVID-19 response. That might however be the exception that proves the rule as the ultimate accountability and incentive system remains with the host entity. What are the incentives to work together better on integrated policy support?
While countries are grappling with the COVID-recovery, now is the opportunity to collectively move the needle further. The tools are available to design and deliver transformative SDG results. But we can’t yet be satisfied with the progress made. It’s time to accelerate the implementation of the reforms. Will the UN be able to deliver a beautiful symphony or a cacophony of discordant chaos? The choice is ours to make.
*Integrated policy is defined as a deliberate approach to connect the design, delivery and evaluation of programmes across disciplines and sectors to produce an amplified, lasting impact on people’s lives.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and policies of the United Nations.
