Canadian Government Executive - Volume 23 - Issue 1

10 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2017 Figure 1. The SDGs as a network of targets states. The United Nations is undertak- ing systemic reform to introduce new capabilities for supporting the SDGs more strategically and effectively. There are numerous exciting initiatives on digital governance, strategic foresight, Big Data, citizen participation in policy-making, and innovation labs for the addressing the SDGs in innovative ways. Not surprisingly, the SDGs are being embraced by the corporate sector. The role of business in the SDGs goes be- yond Corporate Social Responsibility and philanthropy. The SDGs now intro- duce a practical framework for a whole new concept of business. This is known as the “5Ps” (Profit, People, Planet, Peace, Partnerships) and it builds upon existing models of Benefit Corporations, Impact Investment, Social Entrepreneurship, and Collective Impact. gets and their corresponding indicators. The goals span from employment to edu- cation and health to human rights to en- ergy and climate change to infrastructure and urban development. The complexity of the SDGs ought to be addressed system- ically. There cannot be cherry-picking or departmentalization because of the high level of complexity and interdependence. SDGs might also be seen as a “network of targets: in the DESA model, for instance, 60 Targets explicitly refer to at least one other Goal, and 19 Targets link more than 3 Goals. And this model still does not rep- resent the whole complexity of the SDGs. SDGs are being addressed in new cycles of government strategic planning and preparation of Medium-Term Budget Frameworks worldwide. The European Union is revising its policies to fully in- corporate the SDGs across all member- The need for integrated policy and interactive governance The issue of policy integration is probably the most challenging aspect of the SDGs. There is nothing especially new about concepts such as “breaking down the silos” or holistic and “joined-up” government. Nor is there anything new about the un- derstanding that inter-sectoral coordina- tion and policy coherence are critical for effective performance and policy impact. However, the SDGs create a new level of awareness of the integrated approach be- cause their complexity and “wickedness” – accompanied by the urgency to accom- plish them in mere 15 years – create un- precedented policy challenges. Each Goal is itself a “whole” and, at the same time, part of a larger “whole.” Dealing with com- Policy 4 DESA WORKING PAPER NO. 141 Figure 1 The SDGs as a network of targets Source: Author’s elaboration. Note: targets labels are the numerals which refer to them in the report of the Open Working Group on SDGs.