The Sustainable Development Goals set a roadmap for a better world. One where poverty, hunger, disease, climate change and gender inequality are no longer a threat to our planet and wellbeing. Instead, they chart a world where decent jobs for all, sustainable infrastructure, clean oceans and energy, responsible consumption and production, clean water and sanitation, and quality education, become the norm.

Achieving progress on the SDGs will require governments to work across policy areas. This is no easy task. The obstacles to joined-up government are well known. For example, immediate economic and social pressures often crowd out longer term strategic policy initiatives. Public budgets and accountability systems are usually aligned with departmental structures and have difficulty tracking outcomes that occur in multiple policy areas and across multiple levels of government. An unprecedented range of public and private actors will need to be consulted and participate in both policy formulation and implementation of the SDGs.

Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a formidable challenge for countries at all levels of development. The 2030 Agenda requires governments to coordinate, consult and work across policy areas in an unprecedented way. This calls for a strategic use of budget, procurement and regulatory tools and the design and implementation of innovative, forward-looking policies and programmes. All these issues are part of a ‘governance’ agenda, which not only is a goal in itself, but also more importantly, an essential enabler for the achievement of all other goals.

This chapter underlines the importance of whole-of-government coordination and policy coherence for ensuring an integrated approach to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The integrated nature of the 2030 Agenda requires governments to collaborate across policy sectors and set interrelated economic, social and environmental objectives that go beyond short-term political cycles. There is a need for a whole-of-government approach to strategic visioning, priority setting, and implementation. Robust coordination mechanisms are key in ensuring policy coherence and successfully addressing the multi-dimensional policy challenges that characterise the SDGs.

Stakeholder participation and open government strengthen the legitimacy of policy- making decisions for implementing the SDGs. This chapter shows that collaborating with citizens at every stage of policy and service design and delivery is critical for ensuring sustainable improvements that respond to nuanced public needs. By promoting the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation, open government strategies and practices can inform both the substance of SDG implementation – by directly contributing to the achievement of the goals – as well as the process by which countries pursue the SDGs throughout the policy cycle, namely, during their design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Budgeting for the SDGs promotes policy integration and ensures continuity of policy objectives beyond electoral cycles. The budget is a central policy document of governments, showing how annual and multi-annual objectives will be prioritised and achieved. Adapting budget systems and processes can improve the extent to which resource allocation supports effective policy design and performance in support of national SDG agendas, at all levels of government. Linking budgets to the SDGs could also be used as a tool to assess overall government performance, taking into account longer-term sustainability of the budget and helping to increase administrations’ accountability to civil society and Parliaments. An increasing number of countries are also using public procurement as a strategic policy lever to support broader outcomes consistent with the SDGs.

Monitoring and evaluation systems are essential for assessing to what extent policies and resource allocations for implementing the SDGs result in meaningful outcomes. This chapter illustrates ways in which solid monitoring and evaluation systems, and the strategic use of the information they generate throughout the policy and budget cycle, can foster a range of objectives such as policies’ value for money, accountability, and overall transparency of a policy-making process. Sound monitoring and evaluation systems become even more important given the complex and interconnected nature of the SDGs.

Integrity in public policies is the cornerstone of a system of sound public governance. It is vital to govern in the public interest and for the prosperity and well-being of society as a whole. This chapter shows that integrity in public policies strengthens the democratic process and reduces the risk of policy capture in SDG implementation. Integrity also promotes economic growth by cultivating a level playing field for business, helps reduce socio-economic inequalities, and supports environmental sustainability goals. Furthermore, strengthening integrity and reducing corruption is critical for restoring trust in government.

This chapter illustrates ways in which equal access to justice enables the implementation of compensatory and control mechanisms in society to achieve all other SDGs. At its core, effective access to justice is central to ensuring the effectiveness of the rule of law, and promotes good public governance, policy design and regulatory performance. Strong, well-functioning justice systems reduce the scope for policy capture, corruption and mismanagement in the public sector. They increase trust in government and support governance systems that are conducive to achieve the SDGs. More broadly, access to justice and legal empowerment initiatives are necessary elements to achieve policy outcomes such as better health, education, gender equality, employment and housing.

This chapter explores how public governance frameworks to support gender equality can accelerate implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Achieving gender equality is a complex, transversal and multidimensional task. It requires the involvement and buy-in from all government actors as well as a broad array of stakeholders across society. An intersectional governance approach is critical to implement gender equality while addressing economic, social, political and environmental aspects of gender gaps at the global, national and local levels. This goes hand-in-hand with the call to leave no one behind, which requires policy coordination and coherence across all dimensions of sustainable development in order to reduce global inequality – both within and between countries.

In the Czech Republic, the Agenda 2030 is coordinated by the Sustainable Development Unit in the Ministry of the Environment and continuously consulted at the Government Council on Sustainable Development (GCSD). The Council is chaired by the Vice Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment and made up of representatives of ministries, Parliament, the private sector, trade unions, academia, civil society and regions and municipalities, and is divided into thematic committees. The work of the Council is supported by its Secretariat, which is currently based in the Sustainable Development Unit.

Mechanisms for dialogue and engagement, whereby governments and key stakeholders can come together to identify common challenges, set priorities, contribute to the development of laws and regulations, align policies and actions, and mobilise resources for sustainable development, are essential for coherent implementation of the SDGs. In Finland, operational commitments are among the main tools to foster participation of key stakeholders and create opportunities for organisations and active citizens to pursue the sustainable development goals as a task for society as a whole. Such commitments, notably Society’s Commitment to Sustainable Development, have provided various actors with an effective and sensible way of participating in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. More than 750 commitments to action promoting sustainable development have been made, encompassing all sectors of society: companies, schools, non-governmental organisations, administration, trade unions, political parties, cities, and even private individuals (OECD, 2017[1]; 2018[2]; PMO Finland, 2017[3]; National Comission on Sustainable Development, 2016[4]).

In 2006 the Ministry of the Environment and the three largest municipalities, Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense entered into a Partnership for Green Public Procurement. Since then other municipalities and regions have joined the partnership. It now includes 12 municipalities as well as two regions, a Danish water and wastewater company and the Ministry of the Environment and Food. The Danish municipalities are responsible for the majority – approximately two thirds – of public procurement. The Partnership is based on joint, mandatory procurement objectives and the main stimulus behind it is the potential impact it can have on the market: the more partners involved, the greater the procurement volume and the greater the impact on the market. Using the same green criteria is also designed to make it easier for the market to meet the procurement needs of the contracting bodies. The obligations under the Partnership are:

In July 2018, the Office of the General Comptroller (Sindicatura General de la Nación - SIGEN) and the National Council on Social Policies Coordination (CNCPS) signed a Cooperation Agreement. Both institutions committed themselves to organise a training programme for internal auditors on the 2030 Agenda, to develop technical tools in order to manage control over the implementation, and to investigate mechanisms so as to broaden these activities to national scale through the Federal Network of Public Control (Provincial Courts of Accounts) chaired by SIGEN.

Indonesia’s large biodiversity makes it susceptible to illegal wildlife trade (IWT). The problem is complex and linked to a number of factors that are critical to the country’s long-term development. Enforcement capacity gaps, corruption, unclear legal frameworks, and issues with inter-agency coordination between government bodies complicate matters further.

The Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales was established in 1967 and is an independent body incorporated in New South Wales by the Law and Justice Foundation Act 2000 (NSW). Its main objective is to advance the fairness and equity in the justice system and to improve access to justice, particularly for socially and economically disadvantaged people. The Foundation brings together experts from different areas of expertise such as: law, evidence-based research, and the social sciences to look at access to justice through the lens of different disciplines. In particular, the Foundation seeks to use rigorous research methodologies to:

Iceland is a global frontrunner in gender equality and can offer leading-edge practices of international interest. The Government of Iceland recognises that gender equality is a continuous process and calls for whole-of-government attention to further boost inclusive outcomes in all policy areas, from education to access to labour markets to environmental protection.