SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

The report outlines critical knowledge gaps across four themes essential for achieving SDG 17 and the broader 2030 Agenda. It emphasizes the need for research on the relationship between quality of government and sustainability outcomes, the development of tools for policy coherence, the removal of barriers to technology transfer in least developed countries, and the creation of empirical metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder partnerships.

• Research is needed to explore the relationship between the quality of government and the diverse social, environmental, and economic outcomes of the SDGs, including potential trade-offs where gains in government quality might conflict with environmentally oriented targets.
• There is a significant need for research into domestic resource mobilisation in developing countries, specifically regarding policies that improve revenue generation, the political economy conditions for increasing tax revenues, and the impact of the international policy context on national revenue capacity.
• The report identifies a lack of empirical research and analytical tools for 'policy coherence for sustainable development' (PCSD), calling for comparative studies on coherence strategies and a better understanding of causality between different SDG targets.
• Effective technology transfer to least developed countries (LDCs) is hindered by gaps in technological, financial, and institutional capacity; research is needed to match technological complexity with local absorptive capacity.
• The impact of intellectual property rights (IPR) on technology transfer is contentious and varies by sector; the report suggests a need for sector-specific analysis of IPR impacts on SDG achievement, particularly for adaptation-oriented technologies.
• There is a critical lack of a knowledge base for evaluating the ex post effectiveness of multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs), with a need for theoretical work to define appropriate success metrics beyond simple quantifiable outputs.
• The report suggests that the high operational capacity required by existing MSP design principles may be unrealistic, necessitating research into whether certain governance gaps can only be addressed by traditional authorities rather than partnerships.

APA

Maltais, A., Weitz, N., & Persson, Å. (2018). SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/sdg-17-review-of-research-needs-171219.pdf

Chicago

Maltais, Aaron, Nina Weitz, and Åsa Persson. SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2018. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/sdg-17-review-of-research-needs-171219.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Maltais |first1=Aaron |last2=Weitz |first2=Nina |last3=Persson |first3=Åsa |title=SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=November 2018 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/sdg-17-review-of-research-needs-171219.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{maltais2018sdg, author = {Maltais, Aaron and Weitz, Nina and Persson, Åsa}, title = {{SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2018}, month = nov, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/sdg-17-review-of-research-needs-171219.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }