Implementing the SDGs Responding to the Challenges of Interconnectivity and Balance

Navam Niles and Karin Fernando

No 39, Southern Voice Occasional Paper from Southern Voice

Abstract: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) present two challenges for integrated planning and implementation at the national level. One is that policies and plans need to identify and accommodate interconnectivities amongst the SDGs. Second is the need to balance the three dimensions: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. This paper uses network analysis to explore interconnectivity and balance of the Sri Lankan policies or plans in relation to SDG 7, that advocates clean energy security. The findings suggest that the selected policies or plans are not only clearly linked to SDG 7, but also shows strong connectivity to SDG 1 (poverty), 10 (inequality), 11 (cities) and 12 (sustainable consumption and production) as well as other SDGs. This emphasises the need to recognise sectoral cross links for an integrated plan. In terms of balance there is a skew towards the environmental dimension over the economic and social dimensions. There are also conflicts between the environmental and economic dimensions that need to be acknowledged and reconciled, while more focus is needed to meet the objective of energy for all. Lastly the paper shows that network analysis can assist policymakers and planners to move towards building an integrated approach to develop sustainable policies and plans.

Keywords: SDG 7; network analysis; Sri Lankan energy policies and plans; interconnectivity and balance; clean energy security (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2017-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://southernvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/SV-OP-39.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:svo:opaper:39

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Southern Voice Occasional Paper from Southern Voice Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarwar Jahan ().