scholarly journals The application of soft systems thinking in SDG interaction studies: a comparison between SDG interactions at national and subnational levels in Colombia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efraim Hernández-Orozco ◽  
Ivonne Lobos-Alva ◽  
Mario Cardenas-Vélez ◽  
David Purkey ◽  
Måns Nilsson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systems Thinking ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Soft Systems ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Agenda 2030 ◽  
Expert Opinions ◽  
Soft Systems Thinking ◽  
Trade Offs

AbstractSince the approval of the Agenda 2030, researchers and policy makers have pointed out the need to understand interactions among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—suggesting that progress or the lack of progress toward one goal will affect other goals through systemic interactions, producing synergies and trade-offs. However, most of the methods used to account for these interactions rely on hard systems thinking approaches, which are limited by the absence of needed data below national levels. Moreover, a general lack of data also constrains the scope of analysis to the 17 Goals, ignoring their 169 underlying targets. Given these challenges, we report on an experiment using an example of a soft systems thinking methodology: the SDG Synergies approach, which is based not only on available information but also on the elicitation of stakeholder and expert opinions. Thus, the approach allows for analysis of target-to-target interactions at subnational scales. The study, the first of its kind, assessed interactions at two scales: the national level in Colombia and the subnational level in the department of Antioquia. The results reveal profound differences between the two scales, suggesting that national-scale analysis of SDG interlinkages is not certain to capture local-level realities. The findings raise important issues for understanding and managing cross-scale interactions. Our work suggests that soft systems thinking is more appropriate for assessing SDG interactions because such an approach lends itself to conducting target-level analysis at various scales in the face of limited data availability.

scholarly journals Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development Targets: A Possible Harmonisation? Insights from the European Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Petti ◽  
Claudia Trillo ◽  
Busisiwe Ncube Makore
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Agenda 2030 ◽  
Development Framework ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
National Databases

The Agenda 2030 includes a set of targets that need to be achieved by 2030. Although none of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focuses exclusively on cultural heritage, the resulting Agenda includes explicit reference to heritage in SDG 11.4 and indirect reference to other Goals. Achievement of international targets shall happen at local and national level, and therefore, it is crucial to understand how interventions on local heritage are monitored nationally, therefore feeding into the sustainable development framework. This paper is focused on gauging the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals with reference to cultural heritage, by interrogating the current way of classifying it (and consequently monitoring). In fact, there is no common dataset associated with monitoring SDGs, and the field of heritage is extremely complex and diversified. The purpose for the paper is to understand if the taxonomy used by different national databases allows consistency in the classification and valuing of the different assets categories. The European case study has been chosen as field of investigation, in order to pilot a methodology that can be expanded in further research. A cross-comparison of a selected sample of publicly accessible national cultural heritage databases has been conducted. As a result, this study confirms the existence of general harmonisation of data towards the achievement of the SDGs with a broad agreement of the conceptualisation of cultural heritage with international frameworks, thus confirming that consistency exists in the classification and valuing of the different assets categories. However, diverse challenges of achieving a consistent and coherent approach to integrating culture in sustainability remains problematic. The findings allow concluding that it could be possible to mainstream across different databases those indicators, which could lead to depicting the overall level of attainment of the Agenda 2030 targets on heritage. However, more research is needed in developing a robust correlation between national datasets and international targets.

Biodiversity revisited through systems thinking

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Federico Davila ◽  
Roel Plant ◽  
Brent Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Systems Thinking ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Soft Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Soft Systems Thinking ◽  
Perspective Drawing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sustainability Challenges ◽  
Shared Understandings

Summary Systems thinking provides a comprehensive range of theories and methods that are useful for understanding and managing sustainability challenges. Biodiversity conservation is riddled with complex interactions between science, society and myriad interacting systems through temporal and spatial scales. This article presents a synthetic analysis of the history of systems thinking from a genealogical perspective, drawing from hard and soft systems thinking, and resilience and social-ecological systems. Using the anchor point of system leverage points and system characteristics (parameters, feedbacks, design and intent), we employ a diversity of examples to illustrate their relevance to multiple biodiversity related problems. We conclude by illustrating the opportunities for systems thinking to bridge epistemic divides with multiple biodiversity actors working towards conservation outcomes. Systems thinking can support more integrative biodiversity interventions, as they provide a pluralistic set of tools for bridging knowledges and disciplines, which can be useful to create new shared understandings of how to conserve biodiversity.

scholarly journals Exploring mechanisms for systemic thinking in decision-making through three country applications of SDG Synergies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Barquet ◽  
Linn Järnberg ◽  
Ivonne Lobos Alva ◽  
Nina Weitz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Systems Thinking ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
National Level ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Systemic Thinking ◽  
Incremental Change ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Empirical Material

AbstractIncreased systems thinking capacity—that is, the capacity to consider systemic effects of policies and actions—is necessary for translating knowledge on Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) interactions into practice. Various models and tools that seek to support more evidence-based policy-making have been developed with the purpose of exploring system effects across SDGs. However, these often lack integration of behavioral aspects and contextual factors that influence the decision-making process. We analyze three applications of a decision-support approach called SDG Synergies, which aims at building capacity in systems thinking among decision-makers and implementing agencies. Our objective is to explore how behavior and context influences whether and how knowledge is taken up and acted upon when making decisions. Drawing on empirical material from Mongolia, Colombia, and Sri Lanka, we identify three sets of mechanisms that appear important for enabling more systemic thinking: system boundaries (time, scale, and space), rules of engagement (ownership, representation, and purpose), and biases (confirmation biases and participation biases). Results highlight some key challenges for systemic thinking that merit further attention in future applications, including the importance of localizing SDGs and incorporating this knowledge to national-level assessments, an unwillingness of stakeholders to acknowledge trade-offs, the challenge of addressing transformational as opposed to incremental change, and striking a balance between the flexibility of the approach vis-à-vis scientific robustness.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document