Unleashing Policy Coherence to Achieve the SDGs

3. Summary and conclusions

3.1. Implementation

Adherents’ efforts to implement and disseminate the Recommendation over the past five years have taken place in an increasingly challenging context. During this time, there has been a significant rise in interconnected economic, environmental, social and geopolitical crises, all of which have had serious implications on countries’ prospects to develop sustainably and in line with their international commitments such as the SDGs (OECD, 2022[1]). The 2023 UN Secretary-General’s annual report on SDG progress, which was delivered during the 2023 SDG Summit at the mid-point towards 2030, warned that the SDGs are off track. Recognising this critical juncture, the UN Secretary-General’s 2023 report outlined a Rescue Plan for People and Planet, which highlights areas for urgent action including the urgency of equipping governments and institutions for sustainable and inclusive transformation, and prioritising policies and investments that have multiplier effects across the SDGs.

The information gathered by the Secretariat, including the questionnaire responses, aligns with the findings of the 2023 report on SDG progress on the need for more urgent action. While Adherents have made clear efforts to implement the Recommendation at the domestic level and, in the context of collaborative work with the OECD, at international level, progress has been made at varying speeds. Different Adherents have also prioritised different actions of the Recommendation, reflecting the variety of institutional and political contexts in which the Recommendation is being implemented. The reported challenges in PCSD implementation (Table 3.1) must be addressed to support the urgent acceleration of efforts required to keep the SDGs on track for 2030.

The table below outline challenges identified by Respondents for making progress on PCSD. The main challenges identified relate to the availability of data and evidence relating to the transboundary or global impacts of policies, political commitment, technical capacity, and the limited enforceability of PCSD measures.

Table 3.1. Identified challenges to PCSD Implementation

Challenges to PCSD implementation reported by Respondents	Respondents (%)
Lack of sufficient data and evidence-based information to assess the transboundary or global impacts of policies	73%
Insufficient technical capacity on the topic	45%
Limited enforceability of PCSD measures	45%
Insufficient political commitment for PCSD at the highest levels of government	41%
Unclear allocation of roles and responsibilities for promoting, overseeing and implementing PCSD in the public administration	36%
Funding constraints	27%
Lack of clearly defined priority areas, time-bound actions or key performance indicators for marking progress on PCSD	27%
Difficulty in clearly communicating the benefits of PCSD across government	27%
Lack of long-term measures to ensure sustained commitment to PCSD beyond electoral cycles	23%
Unsupportive legal and political framework	18%

Note: 22 Respondents

Source: 2023 Questionnaire to Adherents for assessing the implementation, dissemination and continued relevance of the OECD Recommendation on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development

Considering the challenge of addressing transboundary impacts, Adherents have also expressed their wish for greater support by the OECD for their implementation efforts, and lead by example. The need for such support was underlined at a meeting of the OECD Network of National Focal Points for Policy Coherence, as well as a meeting of the Development Centre Governing Board including both OECD Members and non-Members, and subsequently at the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) meeting on 17 April 2024. Specific proposals included:

• Increased collaboration across OECD policy communities to enhance understanding of specific challenges related to the actions set out in the Recommendation on the transboundary impacts of policies.

• The development of analysis for Adherents on the transboundary impacts of policies within specific thematic areas, to better guide decision making in Adherents.

• Providing a platform for non-Members to more systematically share their views on the transboundary impacts of OECD policy recommendations and dedicated analysis, including through the Development Cluster, to support Adherents in assessing transboundary impacts in their implementation.

• Supporting communication that can better convey the relevance and importance of policy coherence to key decision makers, and supporting linkages between policy coherence, SDGs and well-being frameworks.

In particular, a number of DAC members suggested future work on analysing and unpacking issues relevant to transboundary impacts in select priority areas, as well as assessing more systematically the impact of OECD legal instruments particularly the positive and negative effects resulting from the implementation by Adherents for developing countries. Some DAC members also emphasised that an OECD-wide approach (including through the forthcoming revision of the OECD Strategy on Development) would be helpful to mainstream policy coherence more systemically across the Organisation.

3.2. Next steps

The OECD Secretariat will continue to support Adherents in their efforts to enhance Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development. To increase effectiveness, this work could focus on the gaps in implementation identified across the principles of the Recommendation, as well as the implementation challenges reported by Adherents (Table 3.1). This will include support on technical capacity and the availability of data, methodologies and tools, particularly in the area of policy impact assessment and spillover effects. Efforts to foster understanding across policy actors – particularly in line ministries – of the importance and benefits of policy coherence, and potential costs of incoherence – backed up by clear, high-level political support, will also be important to inform meaningful action where trade-offs and negative impacts are identified. DAC Peer Reviews will continue monitoring efforts to address transboundary impacts, to support follow-up as well as the identification and discussion of good practice.

Dissemination efforts will also continue, both for the Recommendation and on good practices. The outcomes of national projects can feed into discussion in the OECD Network of National Focal Points for Policy Coherence to inspire and inform implementation efforts in other Adherents. In line with feedback from Adherents, dissemination efforts could include developing user-friendly communication tools such as shorter and more focused material, dedicated communication and awareness raising material targeted at specific policy areas and themes, as well as targeted communications for political decision makers.

The DAC and PGC could step-up their collaboration and co-ordination with other policy communities within the OECD, to further strengthen the implementation of the Recommendation and encourage reflection on the interaction of policy areas and provide more coherent policy advice to Members.

In light of calls by Adherents for greater support of the OECD to address the transboundary impacts, the DAC at its 2023 High-Level Meeting committed to seek “OECD wide collaborative solutions to better address the transboundary, social and environmental effects of other relevant policies and finance” (Development Assistance Committee, 2023[2]). Building on the example of OECD’s work on responsible business conduct, the DAC and the PGC could enhance collaboration with other OECD policy communities on a select set of priority themes, raise awareness of other policy communities of transboundary impacts of policies, and support the bridge building role of the OECD and key forum for multilateral dialogue on policy coherence challenges of high relevance to developing countries.

References

[2] Development Assistance Committee (2023), DAC High Level Meeting Communiqué, https://www.oecd.org/dac/development-assistance-committee/DAC-HLM-Communique-2023_EN.pdf.

[1] OECD (2022), The Short and Winding Road to 2030: Measuring Distance to the SDG Targets, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/af4b630d-en.