Assessment of the Governance Dimension in the Frame of the 2030 Agenda: Evidence from 100 Spanish Cities

Carmen García-Peña, Moneyba González-Medina and Jose Manuel Diaz-Sarachaga
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Carmen García-Peña: Economic and Business Programme, Department of Applied Economics (Economic Policy), Universidad de Málaga, 29013 Málaga, Spain
Moneyba González-Medina: Department of Political Science and International Relations, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Jose Manuel Diaz-Sarachaga: GTDS Research Group, Faculty of Law, Universidad de Oviedo, 33006 Oviedo, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-21

Abstract: The 2030 Agenda highlights the importance of governance to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). However, we observe that there is an underestimation of the governance dimension in the SDG indices. The reasons are twofold. Firstly, indices assign a lower weight to governance compared to the other dimensions of sustainability. Secondly, most governance indicators do not measure the relational dynamics that underlie sustainable development policies. The aim of this study is thus to provide alternative methods for a more accurate assessment of the governance dimension in the frame of the 2030 Agenda. With this purpose, we examine the performance of 100 Spanish cities on the SDGs included in the first report elaborated by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Spain in 2018. Using this data, we first develop a methodology to rebalance the current underestimation of the governance dimension, comparing its impact on the SDG performance of these cities. Secondly, we build a new indicator of ‘Strategic Culture’ to get a more accurate measure of governance in urban contexts. As a result, the study validates the proposed methods and provides evidence that better performance on sustainable development is favored by the implementation of strategic planning processes.

Keywords: sustainable development; governance; SDG index; policy evaluation; strategic planning processes; Spanish cities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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