Sustainable Development Goals Diagnostics : An Application of Network Theory and Complexity Measures to Set Country Priorities
The United Nations 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals are comprehensive and holistic in nature, as they includes 17 goals and 169 targets covering economic, social, and environmental dimensions of development. In this context, policy...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/270771529500170694/Sustainable-development-goals-diagnostics-an-application-of-network-theory-and-complexity-measures-to-set-country-priorities http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29934 |
| Summary: | The United Nations 2030 Agenda and the
Sustainable Development Goals are comprehensive and holistic
in nature, as they includes 17 goals and 169 targets
covering economic, social, and environmental dimensions of
development. In this context, policy makers face the
challenge of translating the global agenda into feasible yet
ambitious development plans and policies. This paper
presents a methodology that can assist policy makers in
prioritizing the targets of the Sustainable Development
Goals within their development plans, given elements of path
dependency among the goals. The method used is based on the
notion that existing patterns of development outcomes can
reveal information about the commonalities in
countries' unobservable Sustainable Development Goal
delivery mechanisms. The ease with which capacities can be
used between Sustainable Development Goals depends on their
degree of commonality, conceptualized in the proximity
between them. Related to this, the paper introduces
Sustainable Development Goal centrality as a measure of
connectedness. In addition, it defines a country's
Sustainable Development Goals density to indicate how close
an "unsuccessful" Sustainable Development Goals is
to those Sustainable Development Goals in which a country is
performing well. The paper concludes that countries should
prioritize the Sustainable Development Goals that are within
reach (high density) and/or offer higher scope for success
through redeployment of existing capacities (high
centrality). It applies the method to show how this can help
countries prioritize implementation of the Sustainable
Development Goals. |
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