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Scientific Evidence on the Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals

Biermann, Frank LU ; Hickmann, Thomas LU orcid ; Sénit, Carole Anne ; Beisheim, Marianne ; Bernstein, Steven ; Chasek, Pamela ; Grob, Leonie ; Kim, Rakhyun E. ; Kotzé, Louis J. and Nilsson, Måns , et al. (2022) In Nature Sustainability 5(9). p.795-800
Abstract

In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We present here condensed evidence from an analysis of over 3,000 scientific studies on the Sustainable Development Goals published between 2016 and April 2021. Our findings suggests that the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about... (More)

In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We present here condensed evidence from an analysis of over 3,000 scientific studies on the Sustainable Development Goals published between 2016 and April 2021. Our findings suggests that the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about sustainable development. More profound normative and institutional impact, from legislative action to changing resource allocation, remains rare. We conclude that the scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals thus far.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Nature Sustainability
volume
5
issue
9
pages
6 pages
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • scopus:85132576570
ISSN
2398-9629
DOI
10.1038/s41893-022-00909-5
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
9cb99c60-2715-4934-9422-032f471997a2
date added to LUP
2022-09-28 21:23:23
date last changed
2023-09-11 09:13:41
@article{9cb99c60-2715-4934-9422-032f471997a2,
  abstract     = {{<p>In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We present here condensed evidence from an analysis of over 3,000 scientific studies on the Sustainable Development Goals published between 2016 and April 2021. Our findings suggests that the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about sustainable development. More profound normative and institutional impact, from legislative action to changing resource allocation, remains rare. We conclude that the scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals thus far.</p>}},
  author       = {{Biermann, Frank and Hickmann, Thomas and Sénit, Carole Anne and Beisheim, Marianne and Bernstein, Steven and Chasek, Pamela and Grob, Leonie and Kim, Rakhyun E. and Kotzé, Louis J. and Nilsson, Måns and Ordóñez Llanos, Andrea and Okereke, Chukwumerije and Pradhan, Prajal and Raven, Rob and Sun, Yixian and Vijge, Marjanneke J. and van Vuuren, Detlef and Wicke, Birka}},
  issn         = {{2398-9629}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{9}},
  pages        = {{795--800}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Nature Sustainability}},
  title        = {{Scientific Evidence on the Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00909-5}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41893-022-00909-5}},
  volume       = {{5}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}