Overcoming barriers to integrated planning – tools and training for countries to combine climate and development aims

The goals of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development tightly interlink across social, technical and economic spheres. Achieving them requires swift and vigorous action by policymakers now. An integrated approach to climate and development policy planning is essential to capitalize on synergies among goals and to avoid achieving some goals at the expense of others.

Such integrated planning requires accessible, quantitative tools that can compare policy options, and analyse impacts on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate mitigation.

This brief outlines recent improvements to SEI’s pioneering Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP), which, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the lone available tool that meets these criteria. The brief also highlights SEI’s work to advance integrated planning through a dedicated initiative to expand the LEAP tool’s capabilities and to train planners in low-and middle-income countries to build their in-country capacity.