17. The EU and the Sustainable Development Goals: three options for a post-2030 framework
Andy Sumner and Stephan Klingebiel
in: Hackenesch, C., Keijzer, N., & Koch, S. (Eds., 2024). The European Union’s global role in a changing world: Challenges and opportunities for the new leadership (IDOS Discussion Paper 11/2024). IDOS.
State of play
What has been the contribution of the European Union (EU) to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) around the world? An external evaluation report published by the EU Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) in March 2024 addressed this question, focusing on the period from 2016 to 2021 and covering 146 countries. The report found evidence that the EU has played a pivotal role in globally championing the SDGs at a high level (European Commission, 2024). However, the EU’s influence was less pronounced at the national level, where the impact of EU delegations on local political landscapes was not as significant. The EU has not made the SDGs a flagship of engagement strategies with the Global South (as the Global Gateway is). If the EU wants to promote the SDGs to 2030 and potentially beyond, this will need attention. Moreover, this may be a pressing matter. A review of 140+ national development plans in the Global South that covers the period 2016-2023 (Munro, 2023) found that, although the SDGs’ framing was clear in low-income countries, the SDGs was much less evident in middle-income countries which account for most of the countries and population of the Global South.
Overall, the external evaluation of the EU’s role noted that the EU had made three big contributions. First, the high-level political influence: the EU has effectively influenced the global agenda to champion the SDGs, positioning itself as a leader in global politics. Second, undeniably, financial commitments: substantial funding has been allocated to the SDGs and Agenda 2030, highlighting the EU’s financial support towards Global Development Goals. Third, a set of policy tools: the EU has developed a suite of SDG policy tools, such as the SDG mapper and the Global Europe Results Framework, to integrate and monitor progress towards the SDGs. The new inequality Marker (‘I-Marker’) is a further innovation in this area already being utilised.
The same external evaluation highlights that, ahead of 2030, the EU needs to do three things. First, it needs to enhance global influence: strengthening partnerships with other global actors and extending influence mapping to national EU delegations to amplify the EU’s impact. Second, it needs to clarify policy positions: developing clearer outlines of policies on how each SDG should be pursued (the research on many specific SDGs is well-known – e.g. child stunting – and needs packaging into short, digestible format as briefs). Third, it needs to develop an understanding of what the causal chain is which is assumed to link EU activities to SDG outcomes, deepening understanding of how EU activities contribute to SDG attainment by delineating causal chains.
Internal and external influences
When the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs were agreed in 2015, the global community was able to take advantage of a “window of opportunity” to make some global progress. Even the Paris Agreement with its overarching goal to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels” appeared feasible to achieve in 2015. Since then, international relations have been characterised by profound geopolitical upheavals. The systemic confrontation between China and Western countries, especially the United States, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip after the Hamas terror attacks on 7 October 2023 make it clear that the environment for global cooperation efforts has become much more difficult. In recent months and years, global cooperation has taken significant steps backwards. Populism and autocratic trends in all regions of the world are also seriously damaging efforts towards global cooperation. The scope for finding joint solutions, particularly in the fight against climate change, has become more difficult or even impossible and is, itself, becoming part of international conflict lines.
One important aspect, little considered so far, is that of competing geo-paradigms and how the SDGs/Agenda 2030 might be co-opted, adapted, or side-lined between or within competing worldviews on global development. The Millennium Declaration and the 2030 Agenda were drafted and developed as meta-development paradigms under little pressure from geopolitics. This is likely to be very different for any post-2030 agenda. The EU, the United States and other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) actors, as well as China, most likely supported by Russia, but also Southern actors beyond China, are likely to take a much more geopolitical view of a new global development agenda. Which players will set the tone? Is a new narrative likely to be more influenced by the value system of one actor or group of actors? How strongly can China or India present themselves as opinion leaders of the Global South? All these questions are likely to dominate the discussions in the run-up to 2030.
For the last decade we have already seen the increasingly relevant geopolitical dimension of development topics, not least in development paradigms (Klingebiel, 2023). China’s influence on global development paradigm discourses in recent years is seen as a potential factor in shaping the post-2030 debate. The dominance of Western-led narratives is evident, for example, in the context of the predecessors to the SDGs, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Key actors of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) assert that the DAC played a foundational role in the creation of the MDGs (Carey & Atwood, 2021). One crucial turning point for China’s adjusted approach has been and is the use of the development initiatives initiated by that country for national-interest-focused geopolitics in the Global South and beyond, especially since the 2017 Communist Party Congress. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has been being implemented since 2013, has set new parameters for how an infrastructure initiative can massively change countries (for instance, Pakistan). Further, the BRI is an initiative that is not only aimed at developing countries but encompasses a total of 180 countries and institutions. Other Chinese initiatives have been added in recent years, including the Global Development Initiative (GDI) (2021), which is valued by many developing countries and which advocates its vision by means of six accompanying principles (a people-centred approach; development as a priority; benefits for all; innovation-driven development; harmony with nature; and, action-oriented approaches); eight priorities (poverty reduction; food security; Covid-19 and vaccines; financing for development; climate change and green development; industrialisation; digital economy; and connectivity), along with governance arrangements, and actions. All this demonstrated China’s ability to shape global development discourses. China’s development initiatives have significantly enhanced its soft power capacities. The GDI meetings draw notable high-level participants from countries of the Global South, garnering close attention in European capitals and Washington alike. These initiatives have prompted various responses from Western actors, exemplified by the EU Global Gateway initiative and analogous approaches from other G7 members. The Indian and Brazilian G20 presidencies illustrate a readiness to propose their own development paradigms as well and assert a crucial leadership role for actors from the Global South. These recent developments suggest that geopolitics will likely shape discussions surrounding any post-2030 agenda. Thus, the traditional Western-led global development paradigm is experiencing much more competition because of China’s and other nations’ soft power-building evident in development paradigms.
Looking ahead
As the context is different – now being one of competing geopolitical paradigms – there are three options that the forthcoming Commission can choose from:
Option 1: Push for a “keep it simple” or “too difficult to change” scenario. This entails extending the SDGs to 2040 or even 2050. Even this simple solution may still be politically arduous, but it has the advantage of not needing any changes (or perhaps only some minor changes – maybe adding new SDGs, although that may not be plausible). The problem is this, however: Can something fail and simply be extended and blamed on the pandemic and the tense geopolitical context? On the other hand, it could also be a pragmatic approach if nationalist populism continues its rise in Europe and elsewhere, creating a difficult environment for global affairs.
Option 2: Promote a “go ambitious” scenario. This would entail adopting an ambitious new framework aligned with the contemporary poly-stressor/crisis context. This new framework would presumably align to human security broadly defined as meaning ensuring countries and people do not fall into poverty, or back into poverty, by reducing risk exposure and insuring against risk. Such thinking seems fitting to contemporary times though it is hard to imagine a negotiation again of almost 200 countries at the United Nations given the current lack of enthusiasm within the multilateral system.
Option 3: Push for a “go low, or give up” or the “default scenario”. This option is more of a default than a decision. If there is no post-2030 framework then there will be nothing, and an entire generation with a generally accepted framing, originally in the MDGs and then the SDGs will be over (after 30 years, if one goes back to the OECD-DAC goals that led to the MDGs). For better or probably worse, there would be nothing to guide the multilateral system.
In this set of options, Option 1 seems the most politically plausible, even if it not easy. The EU global leadership role will need to come to the fore again, even to achieve this.
In conclusion, renewing the mission of EU development policy amidst global poly-crisis requires charting a multilateral course beyond 2030. As the world grapples with complex interconnected stressors and crises, the EU’s leadership and commitment to the SDGs will remain important in what happens up to, and beyond 2030. One aspect likely to determine the outcome is if the EU’s worldview and Agenda 2030 increasingly compete, lose out, or somehow merge into other worldviews, or not (Sumner & Klingebiel, 2024). The EU’s commitment to global sustainability stands to benefit greatly if it endeavours to foster consensus on a future sustainability agenda.
To achieve this, the EU and its member states urgently need to explore various avenues for informal consultations to initiate a discussion on a new global agenda for post-2030. Such consultations should involve key stakeholders from the Global South, encompassing less powerful actors but also big emerging powers, including China. Engaging in this manner does not imply naivety on the part of the EU amidst geopolitical complexities. Rather, it underscores the EU’s commitment to promoting investment in de-escalation efforts within critical global discussions for global stability, security and prosperity up to 2030 and beyond.
References
Carey, R., & Atwood, B. (2021). The DAC as the birthplace of the MDGs: Motives, messages and midwives. In G. Bracho, R. Carey, W. Hynes, S. Klingebiel & A. Trzeciak-Duval (Eds.) (2021), Origins, evolution and future of global development cooperation: The role of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) (DIE Studies 104, pp. 340-358). German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). https://doi.org/10.23661/s104.2021
European Commission. (2024). Evaluation of contribution to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals by EU external action in the period 2016-2021. https://international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu/publications/evaluation-contribution-implementation-sustainable-development-goals-eu-external-action-period-2016_en?prefLang=bg
Klingebiel, S. (2023). Geopolitics, the Global South and development policy (IDOS Policy Brief 14/2023). IDOS. https://doi.org/10.23661/ipb14.2023
Munro L. (2023). Are the SDGs a hegemonic global policy agenda? Evidence from National Development Plans. Revue internationale des études du développement 253, 33-61. https://doi.org/10.4000/ried.9171
Sumner, A., & Klingebiel, S. (2024). Imagining global development policy after 2030: What is the EU’s role and how will it sit with competing geo-political paradigms? (EADI Blog). EADI. https://www.developmentresearch.eu/?p=1848
