What does policy coherence look like in a post-COVID world?

It is by now widely recognized that the SDGs came with a strong imperative for integrated decision making and coherence. Looking for example at the VNRs (Voluntary National Reviews) reported to the High-level Political Forum, each year the issue of institutional integration and coherence gets more and more attention. The most common way of approaching this is to understand and tweak the central government machinery to become better integrated and conducive to knowledge-sharing and coordination between its various parts. This institutional integration process provides the basis for allowing a fuller picture of the whole landscape of priorities, goals, and ambitions, as well as enabling a balancing of policies to drive progress towards sustainable development.

Case in point – this UN strategy note I helped prepare a few months ago, which presents some key organizational options and approaches for governments to promote coherent policymaking.

This, we believe, will lead to better, more coherent policies and plans, where governments take a systems perspective, where interactions between the different SDGs are at the very least informing different sectoral decisions, and where one might even hope for a joined-up perspective on government priorities shared by all departments.

For associations and networks

You have a key role to play as governments increasingly have to ensure that different voices are being heard and work with all relevant actors to identify challenges, set priorities, align actions, and mobilize resources. As associations, you have the opportunity to represent the interests and priorities of your constituencies (e.g., women and youth). But you also have a role to support and embody coherence, which implies going beyond thinking about what other sectors and decisions have as impacts on you, but also to consider how your priorities and request affect other groups and interests. Does your agenda generate synergies with other development objectives, and how can they be leveraged further? Are there any trade-offs, and how can they be minimized? This -inward and outward- view can be an effective input to policy-making and help governments make more coherent decisions.

For the business and financial sector

Although traditional public financing approaches, such as ODA and domestic resource mobilization remain essential, a vast amount of additional financing is needed to deliver the 2030 Agenda. Importantly, this makes the 2030 Agenda also a global investment opportunity. The world will be halfway through the 2030 Agenda timeline next year, and with the pandemic driving vulnerable groups into poverty, political pressure will increase to achieve the goals. Businesses and investors: you can help accelerate SDGs implementation, by coupling your leverage capacity with systemic and cross-cutting 2030 Agenda alignment in business practices, planning, and investments. For example, you can use SDG synergies thinking to develop strategic priorities; to test strategies and investments, not just to check against the SDGs but also to analyze and plan for the systemic effects; as well as to monitor the systemic impact of your activities.

For regional and local governments

The local level gives a more concrete and place-based understanding of what the SDGs mean in practice, and how they interact, which makes the whole 2030 Agenda and the question of coherence come to life. And it is at this level that the state’s service delivery on 2030 Agenda priorities like housing, education, health care and environmental protection is actually meeting the citizens. Raising awareness and putting such systems understanding into practice does not require setting up a new organization.

Local and regional leaders can play a key role by agreeing on priorities considering synergies and trade-offs between sectors in your area of jurisdiction, and between cross-cutting issues in multiple sectors. Many methods and tools are increasingly becoming available to assist you in this task. Likewise, in terms of creating opportunities, look for spaces in national decision-making but also international debates. Make yourselves noticed in gatherings where governments, development organizations, and foundations come together in search of promising ideas, which can direct more resources to the local level.

As we slowly move towards a post-COVID world, policy coherence will be essential to supporting a transition towards sustainable development. A future of more coherent policymaking, where social and economic objectives and long-term sustainability and resilience goals are balanced, is not only up to national governments, but a multistakeholder game. We all have a role to play.