scholarly journals Sport and the Sustainable Development Goals: Where is the policy coherence?

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 793-812 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Lindsey ◽  
Paul Darby

This article addresses the urgent need for critical analysis of the relationships between sport and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals enshrined in the United Nations’ global development framework, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Importantly, there has yet to be any substantial academic exploration of the implications of the position accorded to sport as ‘an important enabler’ of the aims of 2030 Agenda and its broad set of Sustainable Development Goals. In beginning to address this gap, we draw on the concept of policy coherence for two reasons. First, the designation of a specific Target for policy coherence in the 2030 Agenda is recognition of its centrality in working towards Sustainable Development Goals that are considered as ‘integrated and indivisible’. Second, the concept of policy coherence is centred on a dualism that enables holistic examination of both synergies through which the contribution of sport to the Sustainable Development Goals can be enhanced as well as incoherencies by which sport may detract from such outcomes. Our analysis progresses through three examples that respectively focus on: the common orientation of the Sport for Development and Peace ‘movement’ towards education-orientated objectives aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 4; potential synergies between sport participation policies and the Sustainable Development Goal 3 Target for reducing non-communicable diseases; and practices within professional football in relation to several migration-related Sustainable Development Goal Targets. These examples show the relevance of the Sustainable Development Goals across diverse sectors of the sport industry and illustrate complexities within and across countries that make pursuit of comprehensive policy coherence infeasible. Nevertheless, our analyses lead us to encourage both policy makers and researchers to continue to utilise the concept of policy coherence as a valuable lens to identify and consider factors that may enable and constrain various potential contributions of sport to a range of Sustainable Development Goals.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Low-Beer ◽  
Mary Mahy ◽  
Francoise Renaud ◽  
Txema Calleja

UNSTRUCTURED HIV programs have provided a major impetus for investments in surveillance data, with 5-10% of HIV program budgets recommended to support data. However there are questions concerning the sustainability of these investments. The Sustainable Development Goals have consolidated health into one goal and communicable diseases into one target (Target 3.3). Sustainable Development Goals now introduce targets focused specifically on data (Targets 17.18 and 17.19). Data are seen as one of the three systemic issues (in Goal 17) for implementing Sustainable Development Goals, alongside policies and partnerships. This paper reviews the surveillance priorities in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and highlights the shift from periodic measurement towards sustainable disaggregated, real-time, case, and patient data, which are used routinely to improve programs. Finally, the key directions in developing person-centered monitoring systems are assessed with country examples. The directions contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal focus on people-centered development applied to data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3505
Author(s):  
Javier Campillo-Sánchez ◽  
Eduardo Segarra-Vicens ◽  
Vicente Morales-Baños ◽  
Arturo Díaz-Suárez

Sport is a valuable tool for sustainable development. This is recognized in the Kazan Action Plan, in the 2030 Agenda, itself, and in the Action Plan for its implementation in Spain. In order to broaden the scope of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is necessary to carefully consider both the possible synergies and existing inconsistencies that can enhance and weaken the contribution of sport to sustainable development. Taking as reference the international recommendations in this regard, it will be necessary to take into account the concept of “policy coherence” in both its vertical and horizontal dimensions. Advancing in the achievement of the SDGs largely requires involving subnational governments and the rest of the stakeholders, promoting decision-making based on concrete and reliable common indicators. Starting from the methodology developed globally by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) for locating the SDGs, a comparative analysis of the sports situation of each Spanish Autonomous Community will be carried out as a diagnosis. This is to show the existing inequalities between territories in relation to the selected indicators and, at the same time, identify some of the main limitations and gaps that we currently find in Spain to perform this location in a more effective way.


2019 ◽  
pp. 443-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graciela Metternicht ◽  
Norman Mueller ◽  
Richard Lucas

Abstract Sustainable development is nothing new, but it has proven notoriously difficult to implement in practice. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with 17 goals, 169 targets and 232 associated indicators, was approved at the 2015 UN General Assembly and addresses the economic, social and environmental pillars of development, aspiring to attain by 2030 a sustainable future that balances equitable prosperity within planetary boundaries. While the goals are universal (i.e., applicable to both developing and developed countries), it is left to individual countries to establish national Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets according to their own priorities and level of ambition in terms of the scale and pace of transformation aspired to.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Temidayo Olabode Akenroye ◽  
Håvard Mokleiv Nygård ◽  
Ama Eyo

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is impressive in its breadth. However, the extensive nature of the agenda presents countries with a set of challenges. In particular, few if any countries will be able to focus on all goals in parallel, yet the agenda offers little clear guidance on how each country can determine their priority areas of focus and funding arrangements for such priority areas. Presently, few efforts have been made to analyse and examine the significance or importance of each sustainable development goal (SDG) and target for individual countries. More importantly, there is the challenge that governments would need to find the finances to fund the goals. Inevitably, politicians and policy makers in financially constrained countries are asking: what levers can we actually use to implement the SDGs efficiently and effectively? In this paper, we develop a simple framework that can help countries in leveraging existing budget resources to guide funding for the implementation of SDGs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 02 (02) ◽  
pp. 169-184
Author(s):  
Jiang Ye

This article analyzes the origin of the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR)” and its role in formulating the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It then explores the potential influence of the principle on the implementation of the goals set forth in the new agenda. Widely known as a principle to address environmental and climate-related challenges, CBDR actually stems from an important concept in international law on the protection of “common heritage of mankind.” For a long time, it seemed unnecessary for the United Nations to specify the CBDR principle in development-related UN official documents due to the separation between North-South cooperation and South-South cooperation. The CBDR principle was finally incorporated into the new UN 2030 Agenda mainly because the agenda managed to merge the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and it became universally applicable to all UN member states, notwithstanding their divergent capabilities to implement these goals. The linkage between policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD) and CBDR in the implementation of the new agenda is a very good example illustrating why the international community has to uphold the CBDR principle in implementing the UN 2030 Agenda.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Dickens ◽  
Vladimir Smakhtin ◽  
Matthew McCartney ◽  
Gordon O’Brien ◽  
Lula Dahir

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are high on the agenda for most countries of the world. In its publication of the SDGs, the UN has provided the goals and target descriptions that, if implemented at a country level, would lead towards a sustainable future. The IAEG (InterAgency Expert Group of the SDGs) was tasked with disseminating indicators and methods to countries that can be used to gather data describing the global progress towards sustainability. However, 2030 Agenda leaves it to countries to adopt the targets with each government setting its own national targets guided by the global level of ambition but taking into account national circumstances. At present, guidance on how to go about this is scant but it is clear that the responsibility is with countries to implement and that it is actions at a country level that will determine the success of the SDGs. Reporting on SDGs by country takes on two forms: i) global reporting using prescribed indicator methods and data; ii) National Voluntary Reviews where a country reports on its own progress in more detail but is also able to present data that are more appropriate for the country. For the latter, countries need to be able to adapt the global indicators to fit national priorities and context, thus the global description of an indicator could be reduced to describe only what is relevant to the country. Countries may also, for the National Voluntary Review, use indicators that are unique to the country but nevertheless contribute to measurement of progress towards the global SDG target. Importantly, for those indicators that relate to the security of natural resources security (e.g., water) indicators, there are no prescribed numerical targets/standards or benchmarks. Rather countries will need to set their own benchmarks or standards against which performance can be evaluated. This paper presents a procedure that would enable a country to describe national targets with associated benchmarks that are appropriate for the country. The procedure builds on precedent set in other countries but in particular on a procedure developed for the setting of Resource Quality Objectives in South Africa. The procedure focusses on those SDG targets that are natural resource-security focused, for example, extent of water-related ecosystems (6.6), desertification (15.3) and so forth, because the selection of indicator methods and benchmarks is based on the location of natural resources, their use and present state and how they fit into national strategies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7738
Author(s):  
Nicolás Gambetta ◽  
Fernando Azcárate-Llanes ◽  
Laura Sierra-García ◽  
María Antonia García-Benau

This study analyses the impact of Spanish financial institutions’ risk profile on their contribution to the 2030 Agenda. Financial institutions play a significant role in ensuring financial inclusion and sustainable economic growth and usually incorporate environmental and social considerations into their risk management systems. The results show that financial institutions with less capital risk, with lower management efficiency and with higher market risk usually make higher contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to their sustainability reports. The novel aspect of the present study is that it identifies the risk profile of financial institutions that incorporate sustainability into their business operations and measure the impact generated in the environment and in society. The study findings have important implications for shareholders, investors and analysts, according to the view that sustainability reporting is a vehicle that financial institutions use to express their commitment to the 2030 Agenda and to higher quality corporate reporting.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4247
Author(s):  
Elena Bulmer ◽  
Cristina del Prado-Higuera

The seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations, Partnerships for the Goals, aims to strengthen the means of the implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. The successful implantation of the UN’s seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal will aid the execution and achievement of the other sixteen goals. This article explores the importance and viability of Sustainable Development Goal 17, using a case study based in Valencia, Spain. The study presents an illustrative stakeholder situation, where we see that there are conflicting interests among conservationists, fishermen, municipality representatives, and others. Data collection was done using desk-based research and semi-structured interviews. The interview process was performed between October 2018 and October 2019. In total, 21 different stakeholders were interviewed. For the data analyses, a stakeholder register, Power–Interest Matrices, and a stakeholder map were used, and, to complement the latter, narratives were developed. The different analyses showed that most project stakeholders supported the project, while there was really only one stakeholder, the fishermen themselves, who were reticent about participating. However, it was shown over time that, by developing a common vision with them, the fishermen came on board the project and collaborated with the scientists. Stakeholder engagement analyses are especially useful in the application of Sustainable Development Goals at the project level. Although this case study is specifically applicable to a marine conservation context, it may be extrapolated and applied to any other Sustainable Development Goals’ context.


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