TY - JOUR

T1 - Local lens for SDG implementation: lessons from bottom-up approaches in Africa

AU - Jimenez-Aceituno, Amanda

AU - Peterson, Garry D.

AU - Norstrom, Albert, V

AU - Wong, Grace Y.

AU - Downing, Andrea S.

N1 - Open access funding provided by Stockholm University. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for their insightful comments and suggestions for strengthening the paper. We also would like to thank Sonja Radosavljevic for her help with the equations. This is a contribution to the Guidance for Resilience in the Anthropocene: Investments for Development (GRAID) Programme led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, and funded by the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and is part of the ‘Seeds of a Good Anthropocene’ Project ( https://goodanthropocenes.net/ ).

PY - 2020/5/1

Y1 - 2020/5/1

N2 - The Anthropocene presents a set of interlinked sustainability challenges for humanity. The United Nations 2030 Agenda has identified 17 specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a way to confront these challenges. However, local initiatives have long been addressing issues connected to these goals in a myriad of diverse and innovative ways. We present a new approach to assess how local initiatives contribute to achieving the SDGs. We analyse how many, and how frequently, different SDGs and targets are addressed in a set of African initiatives. We consider goals and targets addressed by the same initiative as interacting between them. Then, we cluster the SDGs based on the combinations of goals and targets addressed by the initiatives and explore how SDGs differ in how local initiatives engage with them. We identify 5 main groups: SDGs addressed by broad-scope projects, SDGs addressed by specific projects, SDGs as means of implementation, cross-cutting SDGs and underrepresented SDGs. Goal 11 (sustainable cities & communities) is not clustered with any other goal. Finally, we explore the nuances of these groups and discuss the implications and relevance for the SDG framework to consider bottom-up approaches. Efforts to monitor the success on implementing the SDGs in local contexts should be reinforced and consider the different patterns initiatives follow to address the goals. Additionally, achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda will require diversity and alignment of bottom-up and top-down approaches.

AB - The Anthropocene presents a set of interlinked sustainability challenges for humanity. The United Nations 2030 Agenda has identified 17 specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a way to confront these challenges. However, local initiatives have long been addressing issues connected to these goals in a myriad of diverse and innovative ways. We present a new approach to assess how local initiatives contribute to achieving the SDGs. We analyse how many, and how frequently, different SDGs and targets are addressed in a set of African initiatives. We consider goals and targets addressed by the same initiative as interacting between them. Then, we cluster the SDGs based on the combinations of goals and targets addressed by the initiatives and explore how SDGs differ in how local initiatives engage with them. We identify 5 main groups: SDGs addressed by broad-scope projects, SDGs addressed by specific projects, SDGs as means of implementation, cross-cutting SDGs and underrepresented SDGs. Goal 11 (sustainable cities & communities) is not clustered with any other goal. Finally, we explore the nuances of these groups and discuss the implications and relevance for the SDG framework to consider bottom-up approaches. Efforts to monitor the success on implementing the SDGs in local contexts should be reinforced and consider the different patterns initiatives follow to address the goals. Additionally, achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda will require diversity and alignment of bottom-up and top-down approaches.

KW - 2030 Agenda

KW - Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

KW - Interactions

KW - Bottom-up

KW - Local initiatives

KW - Africa

KW - Sustainability education

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074818737&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11625-019-00746-0

DO - 10.1007/s11625-019-00746-0

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 15

SP - 729

EP - 743

JO - Sustainability Science

JF - Sustainability Science

SN - 1862-4065

IS - 3

ER -