The past decade has seen a rapid increase in the number of interrelated economic, environmental, social and geopolitical crises (or a context known as “poly-crisis”), most of which are global or transboundary in nature, span multiple domains and layers of responsibility and with no clear-cut solutions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its effects on global migration, energy supplies and food prices worldwide. The persistence of these challenges can undermine citizens’ trust in government and perpetuate vulnerabilities of economies and societies, leading to what is called a “perma-crisis”. Moreover, Earth is facing, irreversible climate-related tipping points, such as monsoon shifts, rainforest and coral reef dieback, mountain glaciers loss and ice sheet collapse.

When successive global challenges are interconnected, fragmented government action and incoherent policies increase the risk that such policies offset each other, generate costs to society, and undermine long-term government commitments to sustainable development.

Addressing these challenges requires balancing short-term responses with long-term sustainability commitments. It requires strengthening the capacity of national governments to address global challenges in an integrated manner, to steer action through building trust, and to ensure that national institutions can act globally and harness tools and innovation to do so.

The principles of policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD), embodied in the OECD Recommendation on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD Recommendation) provide a framework for embedding sustainability considerations in each step of the policy cycle –planning, co-ordination and implementation, monitoring and reporting. This report looks at how countries implement the PCSD Recommendation and explores how to improve the use of institutional mechanisms and governance tools to address global challenges while pursuing sustainable development. It draws on a survey conducted by the OECD in 2022 and other recent evidence, such as countries’ Voluntary National Reviews for the United Nations High-Level Political Forum.

The report shows that in OECD countries, overall, there is widespread engagement with both the development of long-term visions – often aligned with the 2030 Agenda – and tools for long-term planning. However, challenges remain in achieving these visions and defining long-term strategies that extend beyond 2030. The survey responses suggest that this is particularly challenging when policies are multi-sectoral or longer-term, given the potential for conflict among various interests in the public and private sectors. Moreover, national frameworks and strategies often lack built-in checks and balances to systematically screen policies for their transboundary and global impacts.

In addition, the report finds that governments employ a wide range of mechanisms to integrate policy coherence and tackle “siloed” thinking among and within government bodies as well as across levels of government. These include strategic policy planning and applying a PCSD “lens” and guidelines in the development of laws, regulations, policies, and strategies, often using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the guiding framework. Regular meetings, joint task forces, and interdepartmental committees can facilitate information sharing and the development of cohesive policies across sectors at central level, while regional and local authorities can identify and respond to sustainable development needs at the community level. Stakeholder engagement in sustainable development is widespread and implemented through a diverse range of mechanisms. However, more can be done to ensure that stakeholders have fair and equitable access to the decision-making process.

Finally, promoting policy coherence and ensuring that it leads to meaningful change at local, national and global levels requires careful monitoring, reporting and evaluation – looking at policy impacts ‘here and now’ as well as ‘elsewhere’ and ‘later’. However, governments face several challenges in this regard, including insufficient data at appropriate stages of the policymaking process; inability to interpret the data and establish clear causal links between actions in one country and effects in another; and political interests that may not consider the circumstances and needs of other countries. Indeed, less than half of the surveyed countries reported using indicators or other available data to monitor transboundary impacts

To illustrate the targeted application of PCSD principles in an area highly affected by global challenges, chapter three of the report focuses on the sustainable use of ocean resources – one of Earth’s largest global public commons. Over decades, the combined pressures of rising sea levels and temperatures, acidification, pollution, and overfishing have put an increased strain not only on ocean species and habitats, but also on critical functions upon which human health and well-being depend. At the same time, ocean economy is becoming a central concept for a growing number of coastal states. The ocean economy is expected to double in size by 2030 (currently valued at USD 1.5 trillion per year), thus contributing to many of the 17 SDGs, for instance by creating 12 million new jobs, and potentially contributing by more than 20% to the emission reduction required to achieve a 1.5 °C trajectory by 2050. The report highlights the impacts that the ocean economy could have on ocean’s conservation (SDG 14) and other sustainable development goals as well as potential conflicts among users of the sea competing for space. Governments use policy instruments, tools and mechanisms to balancing competing uses of the sea; applying PCSD principles could support their more proactive use by systematising and reporting on their use across the policy cycle. At global level, the lack of progress in improving the ocean’s health is recognised as undermining food security, employment and nutrition targets. Nonetheless, most international initiatives tend to focus on the achievement of a specific rather than as part of a wider sustainable development effort, and potential social and economic trade-offs are often addressed at local level only. New initiatives, such as the High Seas Treaty, which sets ambitious goals for ocean protection, offer opportunities to push at the global level for a stronger focus on the links between conservation targets and the economic relevance of various ocean-based sectors and their interactions with land-based activities.