March 2015: A paper recently published in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) Working Papers Series analyzes goals and targets of the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), finding that the SDGs as a whole are more integrated and connected than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The SDGs’ inclusion of targets that refer to multiple goals and sectors may facilitate integration and policy coherence across sectors, enabling easier consideration of synergies and trade-offs across SDG areas, according to the paper.

Titled ‘Towards Integration at Last? The Sustainable Development Goals as a Network of Targets,’ the working paper uses a network analysis technique and links proposed targets of the SDGs to various goals, based on the wording of the targets. For example, proposed target 12.4 under goal 12 of the SDGs to ‘Ensure sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns’ explicitly refers to health, and therefore is recorded as linked to SDG 3 on ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.’

For methodological reasons, the paper does not analyze targets related to means of implementation (SDG 17) (although it notes that they could deserve “an analysis of their own”), and the paper therefore considers 16 goals and 107 targets.

The paper includes methodological “caveats” to keep in mind, and differences between the “political” mapping presented in the paper – which reflect the results of negotiations in an intergovernmental context – and other mappings based on physical and socio-economic considerations.

It notes that the mapping “conveys a sense of an unequally knit network,” with some goals linked to many other goals (e.g. SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production, SDG 10 on inequality, SDG 1 on poverty, and SDG 8 on growth and employment are linked to ten or more other goals), and others having fewer links with the rest of the goal set.

It finds that out of 107 targets, 60 explicitly refer to at least one other goal than the one to which they belong, and 19 targets link three goals or more.

The paper also looks at the “strength” of the links among the goals, based on how many targets are linking two goals, and shows strong connection between: gender and education (SDGs 5 and 4); poverty and inequality (SDGs 1 and 10); and inequality and peaceful and inclusive societies (SDGs 10 and 16).

Taking into account these observations, the paper suggests that when designing and monitoring their work, international development agencies concerned with a specific SDG will have to consider targets that refer to other Goals, which may provide stronger incentives for cross-sectoral, integrated work, than in the past. Similarly, the paper notes that for institutions concerned with monitoring and evaluation of progress of the SDGs, it will be necessary to look at multiple Goals (all those which include targets referring to one institution’s area of interest), and that this may enable greater integration across Goals.

The Working Paper is also featured in ‘Sustainable Development,’ a review published in Wiley Online Library. [Publication: Towards Integration at Last? The Sustainable Development Goals as a Network of Targets] [DESA Working Papers]