Meso Evaluation for SDGs’ Complexity and Ethics

ABSTRACT

Sustainability is normatively defined as the interconnectedness of policy goals and actions; the partnership among governments, civil society, and the private sector; and a transformational vision pursuing structural change against marginalization and environmental degradation. This article provides the conceptual basis for a meso policy analysis and evaluation framework to address the normative dimensions of sustainability-centered policies. Drawing on complexity, behavioral, and sustainability sciences, a meso interpretative lens contributes to articulating the ethical and techno-scientific norms underlying SDGs discourses. Through knowledge co-production, and collaborative governance, a meso policy analysis and evaluation approach can help overcome centralized politics and techno-scientific rationalization.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability policy
• meso level policy analysis
• meso level evaluation
• SDGS
• complexity science

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Sustainability is a broad-based category stemming from the concept of sustainable development which became common language at the World’s first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. However, a common and unquestionable definition of sustainability is still lacking, although different institutional and political perspectives propose different explanations on what it is and how it can be achieved. ‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ is another 1992 definition put forward by the Brundtland Report for the World Commission on Environment and Development. Many variants and extensions on this basic definition have followed and thus far overlapped so that the core problem related to sustainability has involved, for a long time, the question of ‘who defines it?.’ Since the 1980s, different political agendas have offered both normative and institutional answers. The Global Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development issued by the UN in 2015 with 17 SGDs has addressed the need for sustainability measures through a global approach based on the integration of economic, societal, environmental and institutional targets.

2. For the connection between industrial economics/ industrial policy and evolutionary institutional meso-economics, see e.g. Elsner (2007).

3. In computational complexity theory, an undecidable problem is a decision problem for which it is proved to be impossible to construct an algorithm that always leads to a correct yes-or-no answer. The halting problem is an example: it can be proven that there is no algorithm that correctly determines whether arbitrary programs eventually halt when run.

4. The Lancet Commission advocates for decentralized governance to build resilient communities and prevent and mitigate the impact of health and other crises. Future responses to health crisis must invest more in supporting communities as agents for response and recovery while engaging other sectors such as communications, banking, and transport. In Sudan, for example, UNDP is helping communities to address climate risks and food security. Incomes among the 20,000 beneficiaries in one initiative – more than half in women-headed households – have increased by 20%, helping to improve education and health outcomes and natural resource stewardship in their communities.