Written evidence

SDG0032

Written evidence submitted by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

September 2016

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has been conducting sustainable development research since 1971. We work with partners on five continents, building bridges between policy and practice, rich and poor communities, government and private sector, across diverse interest groups and different scientific disciplines. We were actively engaged in the process to define the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other elements of the post-2015 development agenda, both through our support to the Least Developed Countries’ group and through work with a global partnership of research institutes working on sustainable development in both rich and poor countries (www.irforum.org).

As the Committee’s inquiry recognises, the SDGs cut across all areas of government – from ending poverty and achieving gender equality through to tackling climate change and using resources sustainably. They are universal and apply to all countries and peoples. For IIED, they are an important milestone on the road towards sustainable development, reflecting the inter-relationships between human development and the environmental, economic, social and political context in which development occurs.

While the SDGs are highly ambitious in what they aim to achieve, setting out the rationale and necessity for a fundamental rethink to business as usual, they are less clear on how the Goals will be met – with the onus on national governments to define the priorities, responsibilities and means for translating the global ambition into real world change. Without this they will remain as vague rhetoric and have negligible impact on the lives of people, not just in the UK, but around the world.

Our response to the EAC inquiry addresses the questions of domestic priorities, including the need for policy coherence, the role of the UK internationally, and how progress should be measured and communicated. The main challenge, we believe, is to make sure the government asks the right questions, and we welcome the EAC’s enquiry as a step in this direction.

What can and should be done in the UK to achieve the SDGs domestically?

What are the potential costs, benefits and opportunities to the UK of delivering the Goals domestically?

The SDGs call for all countries to act to achieve the shared vision of sustainable development. This is a challenging agenda, but provides the UK Government with an opportunity to show global leadership by embracing the sustainable development approach at home, while also taking domestic actions that contribute to achieving the Goals globally. Some actions could impose costs on UK interest groups over the short-term, but these costs would be small in proportion to the longer-term domestic and global benefits. For example, “capacity-enhancing” subsidies to the fishing industry may increase incomes in the short term, but can encourage overfishing, which has greater long term costs.[1]

The broad scope and universality of the SDGs mean that each country is likely to prioritise those goals which it considers to be of most relevance to its own circumstances. The process for setting these priorities is crucial as it provides an opportunity for wider ownership of the sustainable development agenda. Government should identify where the UK is currently failing to achieve the ambition of the Goals, and where the UK has greatest scope for improvement, sharing the evidence with a wide
range of stakeholders, including the general public, to allow broad debate on what the UK’s priorities should be.

While there have been some limited attempts to engage in consultation on the SDGs in the UK,[2] public awareness of the Goals and the question of priorities remains minimal. This is a serious cause for concern and contrasts sharply with efforts in Germany, for example, where citizens have been engaged in the process to develop national sustainable development strategies since 2002.

Which Goals are the most relevant to the UK? Where is UK domestic performance believed to be strongest and weakest?

Even those Goals that appear most dependent on progress in developing countries also require attention at home. Levels of persistent poverty in the UK are higher than in other high income European countries,[3] and child poverty is a particular issue.[4] Food poverty is also a concern, with 500,000 people dependent on food aid and 2 million people estimated to be malnourished.[5] Inequality is also forecast to increase within the UK,[6] as well as between the UK and other countries.

Goals that require domestic action by the UK in order to be achieved globally include Goals 10 (reduce inequality within the UK and between it and other nations); 12 (ensure sustainable consumption and production at home and in the international operations of UK-owned corporations); 13 (take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts); and 14 (conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources).

Action is needed to change current practice if the UK is to contribute to achieving the targets set out under Goal 12 for example, including the target to halve per capital global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses by 2030 (12.3). UK consumers currently throw away some 7 million tonnes of food and drink
a year,[7] while an estimated 200,000 tonnes of food waste created annually in the retail sector could
be prevented.[8]

At home, the UK also faces challenges in achieving Goal 11 on ensuring cities are safe, resilient and sustainable, with air pollution in UK cities responsible for some 40,000 early deaths a year.[9]

By taking determined actions on these issues at home, the Government can drive a more positive approach to issues around poverty and the environment globally, sending out a strong message based on prosperity, wellbeing and inclusion.

For a rich and influential country like the UK, domestic action also has major effects on other countries’ capacities to contribute to achieving the SDGs – so what we do domestically should also be shaped to reflect our wider impacts (good and bad).

As part of the package of actions required to implement Goal 13, the Government must act to ratify and implement the Paris Agreement on climate change and on Goal 14 must support the current negotiation process on a UN agreement on biodiversity in the high seas.[10]

The emphasis in the SDGs is on all countries mobilising domestic resources towards delivering the SDGs. In addition, Goal 17 recognises that the UK and other developed countries also have a responsibility to provide financial and other forms of support for the sustainable development efforts of less developed countries.

As previously identified in our submission to the International Development Committee’s 2015 inquiry on the SDGs, DFID’s Public Service Agreement is currently framed around the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and will need to be updated to reflect the new development agenda. The updated PSA should endorse the full set of Goals and should be grounded in the core purpose of the SDGs, which is to ensure the lasting eradication of poverty in all its forms and the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources.

This would imply a strong focus on the in-country needs of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and other countries with persistently high poverty levels and high levels of dependence on natural resources for their livelihoods, as well as on impediments to poverty eradication requiring effective international cooperation and action.

How best to deliver the Goals?

What structures, governance mechanisms, resources and lines of accountability are required within Government nationally and locally to ensure that efforts to deliver the Goals will be meaningful and achieve real change? Who should be providing leadership on this agenda?

The Sustainable Development Goals also present a valuable opportunity to ensure a coherent approach across government, making sure that efforts to address sustainability are not undermined by policies in other areas. The Goals cover a wide swathe of policy areas, both individually and collectively, and can only be achieved through improved policy coherence, including between domestic and international development policies.[11]

For example, a number of domestic policies related to food, agriculture and energy are inconsistent with the UK’s international development policy on these issues.[12] The Government also needs to consider investment treaties [13] and trade agreements [14] not only from the perspective of domestic benefits, but also the impact they can have on progress towards the SDGs in partner countries. Tax havens and financial regulations (for example related to shadow banking) can also have negative impacts on development progress in other countries.[15] In general, the financial system and its regulation must not be allowed to undermine the ability of other countries to contribute to achieving the SDGs.

The UK has benefited from the shared competence of EU member states on many of these issues. While it will face a major challenge over the next few years to define its own positions and build domestic capacity in these areas, there is also an opportunity for the UK to raise its game and show leadership in these areas.

IIED’s experience and research evidence demonstrate the importance of effective, empowered, accountable and well-financed local institutions to achieving real progress on the ground, especially in contexts where many of the poorest live and work in informal settlements, often without access to the basic services the SDGs focus on. Simply recognising this need to empower local institutions could help the UK Government take a more strategic approach to resource delivery.

One concrete way in which the UK government could ensure support for local institutions would be by adopting and contributing to finance instruments and delivery mechanisms that enable effective and accountable local action. This is relevant both at home and in the UK’s support overseas. It is primarily about delivering funding so that it supports effective local action in areas where local institutions are the bedrock of effective action – such as building resilience to the damaging impacts of climate change.

International financing for sustainable development would also benefit from greater integration of development, climate and other sources of environmental financing. This needs to be achieved without watering down existing commitments to Official Development Assistance or reducing climate financing. The UK is in a strong position to argue for this approach internationally, including through the OECD Development Assistance Committee to ensure a common approach.

The UK Government could also support moves to require business to comply with sustainable development objectives through an international legally-binding instrument on business and human rights, currently being considered.[16]

The International Development Committee has already expressed concern about the “worrying lack of engagement” with the SDG framework from government departments. There is a pressing need to recognise that sustainability cuts across and should be integrated into all policy areas. This means ensuring that the UK’s domestic energy policies do not undermine policies on natural resource use or pollution, or that policies on trade are not contributing to growing inequalities.

How are other countries implementing the SDGs domestically? What examples of best practice are there that the UK can learn from?

The SDGs are still in their infancy and it is far too early to point to “best practices” in other countries. But some countries have been able to get a jump start because of a long history of attention to sustainable development. For example, Finland has had a National Commission on Sustainable Development, headed by the Prime Minister, since 1993. It is now responsible for guiding national efforts on the SDGs.[17] Preliminary research by IIED on the “politics of the SDGs” is also pointing to the importance of cross-ministerial coordination at cabinet level and the need for the systematic integration of the SDGs into the budget process.[18]

Measuring and communicating performance

How can performance against the Goals be measured and communicated in a way that best engages policy makers, local government, businesses and the public and allows effective scrutiny of the Government’s performance by Parliament and civil society?

The Inter Agency Expert Group on SDG indicators has selected 169 targets and 230 indicators. These are categorised into three tiers depending on how clear and sound their methodology is, the existence of international standards and the availability of data. Tier I indicators are conceptually clear, methodology and standards are available, and data are regularly produced by countries. Tier II indicators are conceptually clear and have methodology and standards, but the data are not regularly produced by countries. Tier III indicators don’t have clear methodology and standards, and data are not regularly produced by countries.

At the moment only 42% of the 230 indicators are Tier I. This reflects the major gaps that exist in the current global measurement apparatus. Hence, although it is very important in the worldwide effort to track whether the SDGs have been achieved, it is clearly not sufficient.

This global indicators framework needs to be complemented by processes that help to establish how well implementation, outputs and sustainable development outcomes are achieved. These processes should also help to identify and determine long-term impact. To do this, the UK Government has to establish not only metrics, but also independent institutions, review mechanisms and regular evaluation practice that enable ongoing assessment of the UK Government performance against the most relevant national priorities related to the 169 targets.

Lessons here can perhaps be learnt from the effectiveness of independent institutions in monitoring and evaluation other areas, such as the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) in the UK and the German Institute for Development Evaluation (Deval) in Germany. These report to their respective national Parliaments by looking at the bigger picture from an independent and external perspective.

The UK has been at the forefront in the effort to improve accountability of the Overseas Development Assistance by establishing the ICAI, and by playing a leading role in the Independent Aid Transparency Initiatives (IATI). The 2030 Agenda now provides a great opportunity to lead the international debate by establishing effective processes to rigorously assess domestic performance – a role which could have been undertaken effectively by the UK Sustainable Development Commission, which was regrettably disbanded in 2011.

Truly independent institutions, effective review mechanisms, and sound ongoing evaluation practice, are all necessary to engage policy makers, local government, businesses and the public and allow effective scrutiny of the government’s performance by Parliament and civil society.

The Parliamentarians’ Forum for Development Evaluation [19] provides resources about different countries’ experiences of developing structured national approaches to monitoring and evaluation,
and how they could be integrated into the legislative and administrative frameworks.

Approaches to review mechanisms and ongoing evaluation practice should always start from
two pillars:

participation of different stakeholders, including citizens’ representatives and civil society from the outset; and
use of different sources of information, including data, existing knowledge and multiple points of view on the nature, contexts, and solutions to social and environmental problems.

It is vital that assessments of progress on the most urgent national sustainable development priorities are based on a mix of sound evaluation designs and methods. These should enable analysis of data from different viewpoints to establish the value, worth and merit of policies, programmes and initiatives.

How should measurement against the SDG indicators be integrated with existing measures of sustainable development performance, such as the Sustainable Development Indicators and the Well-being measures?

In terms of measuring impact and progress, there is an opportunity to open up processes that help establish the value, worth and merit of national policies, programmes, and interventions.

Efforts to develop an agreed metric which can track national wealth and wellbeing have not resulted in sufficient consensus on viable alternatives to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), despite widespread agreement on the problems created by relying on GDP. The need to get to grips with the vast set of 17 SDGs and their 169 targets may provide the impetus for a collaborative, inter-disciplinary effort to address this issue. The UK Government could advocate this approach, and support its realisation.

A key component of this will be a data framework that can embrace specificities, be adaptable to regional, national and local contexts, while also allowing scope for a broader interpretation. Metrics might include meta-metrics (composite indices or proxies) for multidimensional poverty, resilience, inequality within and among countries, wellbeing within environmental limits, and for decoupling economic development from environmental degradation and inequalities.

In the global context, there is a need to be realistic about levels of data collection and monitoring. In many low income countries, institutional fragility means that expectations should be low. In situations of conflict these limits are acute. While this is primarily a problem for the wider UN institutions, the UK can help push for realistic monitoring requirements in the work it supports, and through broader debates.

In considering its own approach to measuring progress, the UK government could usefully consider three distinct but related dimensions which should all be tracked:

UK progress towards its own SDG commitments (including the developmental impacts of a spectrum of UK policies and practice such as trade, investment, resource consumption etc)
The progress of developing countries supported by the UK government towards their own SDG-relevant policy commitments (recognising that measurement is the responsibility of those countries), and
Globally, to ensure that the UK both delivers on global commitments, eg. greenhouse gas emission, food waste, and also encourages and facilitates action by others.

More information about IIED’s research and analysis can be found at www.iied.org

September 2016