Sustainable Development Diplomacy: Diagnostics for the Negotiation and Implementation of Sustainable Development
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12350 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
Sustainable Development Diplomacy:
Diagnostics for the Negotiation and
Implementation of Sustainable Development
William R. Moomaw, Rishikesh Ram Bhandary and Laura Kuhl
Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, The Fletcher School of Law
and Diplomacy, Tufts University
Patrick Verkooijen
World Bank, Washington, DC
Abstract
Achieving sustainable development and meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals requires that there be an effective
process of negotiating and implementing sustainable development policies and practices. This paper characterizes an evolving
approach that we define as sustainable development diplomacy. Based on an analysis of the history of climate governance as
a case study of sustainable development diplomacy and drawing on a diverse range of literatures including international
negotiations, global environmental governance, and socio-ecological systems, it identifies seven diagnostics that can be used
to evaluate the negotiation and implementation of sustainable development goals. We argue for a needs-based approach that
brings together diverse stakeholders to devise flexible solutions that fit the complexity and scale of sustainable development
challenges. We illustrate the diagnostic elements with examples from our case study of climate change, as one of the major
global sustainable development challenges, but the diagnostics have wider applicability to sustainable development diplo-
macy and practice more generally.
Policy Implications
•Policies designed to implement sustainable development must address underlying causes rather than treating symptoms.
•Policies are more likely to be implemented if they incorporate mutual benefits for all parties and create a sense of owner-
ship through engagement of diverse stakeholders.
•Policies that successfully implement sustainable development goals should incorporate all three dimensions of sustainable
development: society, environment and economy.
•Policies must have effective implementation and follow-up provisions that set a course for action, but are sufficiently flexi-
ble to incorporate new information and conditions.
Introduction
With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), the international community demonstrated its
renewed global commitment to sustainable development
and clarified the ambitious vision for the wide range of
goals to be achieved under this framework. International
agreement on a set of SDGs was a significant diplomatic
achievement in its own right, but implementation is an even
greater challenge. The adoption of the SDGs was not
accompanied by a comprehensive plan for how to negotiate
their specific applications or how to implement them. Meet-
ing the SDGs will require multiple agreements regarding
implementation policies, strategies and actions at all scales
from international to local, and across sectors of society and
the economy. For this reason, we utilize the term
’sustainable development diplomacy’(SDD) to encompass
the process of negotiating and implementing the SDGs at
all scales, and identify seven diagnostics to facilitate this
process.
The process of implementing sustainable development
requires a governance system that can match the ambition
and complexity of the goals. One of the greatest challenges
for sustainable development governance is the complexity
of the issues and the evolving diplomatic processes required
to address the linkages across issue areas, scales and actors
(Biermann and Pattberg, 2008; Falkner, 2013). The locus of
authority no longer rests solely with nation-states based on
the Westphalian notion of sovereignty (Cerny, 2010; Rose-
nau, 2004). A variety of additional non-state actors are able
to command authority based on the governance and imple-
mentation functions they exercise. Another challenge is that
Global Policy (2017) 8:1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12350 ©2016 The Authors. Global Policy published by Durham and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, whic h permits use and
distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Global Policy Volume 8 . Issue 1 . February 2017 73
Research Article
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