Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Through Transformative Governance Practices and Vertical Collaboration at the National and Subnational Levels in Asia Pacific

The document analyzes the gap between current and ideal governance practices for sustainable development in Asia-Pacific, focusing on multistakeholder processes, vertical and horizontal integration, and monitoring and evaluation. It identifies a prevalence of 'silo' approaches where sustainable development is managed primarily by environment ministries and recommends a comprehensive capacity-building agenda to improve long-term strategic planning, data quality, and subnational implementation.

• There is a significant disconnect between global and national focus areas for the SDGs; national consultations in Asia-Pacific place higher priority on health, environment, good governance, education, employment, and equality than the global focus areas do.
• Regional coordination of sustainable development in Asia-Pacific is dominated by UN bodies, specifically ESCAP, ESCWA, and UNEP, as the region lacks an independent mechanism similar to the European Union.
• Subregional bodies often struggle with horizontal integration because sustainable development is frequently relegated to environment committees, perpetuating a 'silo approach' that ignores social and economic dimensions.
• Genuine multistakeholder National Councils for Sustainable Development (NCSDs) are rare in the region; many countries use experts or government-created bodies as token representation of non-state actors.
• Sustainable development coordination is most commonly lodged within environment ministries, though there is a gradual trend toward placing it under planning or development ministries to improve integration.
• While most countries in the region have formulated a National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS), many are overly environment-oriented and lack effective implementation and monitoring systems.
• Monitoring, evaluation, and reporting (M&E) are severely hampered by inadequate capabilities to generate timely data, establish appropriate indicators, and analyze results.
• The proposed capacity-building agenda for 2014–2015 identifies ten priority areas, including long-term planning with resilience and scenarios, sector analysis for inter-sectoral linking, and improving local government capacity to implement policies.

APA

Antonio, E., Ofei-Manu, P., & Olsen, S. H. (2014). Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Through Transformative Governance Practices and Vertical Collaboration at the National and Subnational Levels in Asia Pacific. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/sdplannet_asia_pacific.pdf

Chicago

Antonio, Ella, Paul Ofei-Manu, and Simon Hoiberg Olsen. Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Through Transformative Governance Practices and Vertical Collaboration at the National and Subnational Levels in Asia Pacific. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2014. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/sdplannet_asia_pacific.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Antonio |first1=Ella |last2=Ofei-Manu |first2=Paul |last3=Olsen |first3=Simon Hoiberg |title=Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Through Transformative Governance Practices and Vertical Collaboration at the National and Subnational Levels in Asia Pacific |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=April 2014 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/sdplannet_asia_pacific.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{antonio2014achieving, author = {Antonio, Ella and Ofei-Manu, Paul and Olsen, Simon Hoiberg}, title = {{Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Through Transformative Governance Practices and Vertical Collaboration at the National and Subnational Levels in Asia Pacific}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2014}, month = apr, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/sdplannet_asia_pacific.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }