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Supporting National Parliaments to become SDG Champions
from The Parliamentarian: 2023 Issue Four: Separation of powers between Parliament, Executive & Judiciary
Examining Economic Governance and Public Finance Management Systems in Southern Africa with United Nations Development Programme (Cabo Verde).
This article looks at the interesting case of the Pro PALOP-TL SAI multi-country south-south and triangular cooperation EU-funded UNDP programme for consolidating Economic Governance and Public Finance Management Systems in the PALOP-TL countries.
Where are we with the SDGs and Agenda 2030?
In the days preceding the 2023 UN SDG Summit (18-19 Sept 2023), the word in everybody’s mind was 'caution'. Not enough evidence and data was available; the limited data collected shows stagnation or even regression in most targets; Governments across the world might be now less inclined for consensus on the SDG commitments due to geopolitics. The world has changed profoundly since the first UN SDG Summit in 2019 and the adoption of the 2030 Agenda in 2015. The UN Agenda 2030 and its SDGs are a global shared commitment, and it remains our overarching roadmap for achieving sustainable development and overcoming the multiple crises the world is facing. However, the Agenda is a promise, not a guarantee.
According to the Sustainable Development Goals Progress Chart 2023, a comprehensive overview of global progress with respect to the targets outlined in the 17 Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, among the 169 targets, 138 can be assessed (based on both available global data and analysis conducted by custodian agencies), while 31 targets lack sufficient data or additional analysis for the trend assessment.
As referred to in the report, based on insight derived from the latest global-level data and custodian agencies, a midpoint evaluation of SDG progress reveals significant challenges and a concerning picture emerges from the analysis of the assessable targets:
a mere 15% are on track to be achieved by 2030;
nearly half (48%) of the targets that can be assessed show moderate or severe deviations from the desired trajectory;
over one-third (37%) of these targets have experienced no progress or, even worse, have regressed below the 2015 baseline.
This comprehensive assessment underscores the urgent need for intensified efforts to ensure the Sustainable Development Goals stay on course. Today, halfway to the 2030 deadline, it is clear that the promise is in deep peril with the favourable trends resulting from early efforts, particularly in extreme poverty, gender equality and global unemployment, proving now to be too fragile and too slow.
Examples of progress towards the 2030 targets for SDG 16
Here are just a few examples of progress towards the 2030 targets on SDG 16, whose stated indicators are for ‘promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and building effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions for sustainable development ’. This is something to which Parliaments are so crucial.
According to the Global Progress Report on SDG 16 indicators, “Women’s representation in Parliament is growing too slowly to reach parity with that of men by 2030”, and “people under the age of 45 are significantly underrepresented in Parliament relatively to their share of the national population” in every region of the world other than Europe and North America (SDG indicator 16.71 a). The report also indicates that “women remain underrepresented in public service institutions” in most of the world, except Europe and North America.
The key findings on the report regarding progress on SGD 16 could be summarised as follows:
Violence is on the rise: Intentional homicides peaked in 2021 and armed conflicts claimed the lives of nearly 17,000 civilians, marking a 53% increase from the previous year.
Increase in child trafficking: The percentage of detected child victims has risen from 28% in 2014 to 35% in 2021.
Access to justice remains limited: Less than half the population report crimes to authorities and the number of detainees continues to grow, with a rising share of unsentenced detainees.
Corruption affects individuals and businesses: Corruption is prevalent, with a higher prevalence in low- and middle-income countries.
Gender inequality: Women remain under-represented in senior decision-making roles, facing glass ceilings in public service and the judiciary.
Increased risks for human rights defenders and journalists: Killings and enforced disappearances of defenders and journalists rose significantly in 2022.
Widespread discrimination: One in six people has experienced discrimination in the last year, with women, persons with disabilities and racial minorities disproportionately affected.
Notwithstanding the challenging picture, decades of experience has shown us that investing in development is the best route out of crisis and strengthening governance systems will accelerate progress towards all of the SDGs.
Parliaments as champions for the SDGs and Agenda 2030
Parliaments are one of the cornerstones of governance and play a crucial role in government checks and balances. As such, Parliaments can become a key actor for the implementation of the SDGs by drafting the legislation needed for incorporating the SDGs into national legislation; in overseeing the implementation by the government of the SDGs, as well as in approving and overseeing that the SDGs get the budget that they need. Parliaments are also key for ensuring that marginalised groups’ needs and views are represented in the SDG legislation.
Yet, parliamentary engagement in the SDGs leaves much to be desired. Despite some good examples of parliamentary activism, political ‘buy-in’ is generally weak and important institutional challenges remain. In many Parliaments, the SDGs continue to be perceived as a ‘foreign’ agenda that has little to do with domestic priorities.
Capacities for oversight and legislation are limited or under-utilised, laws and budgets are not ‘in-sync’ with national development plans, women, youth and vulnerable groups are under-represented, and individual SDGs are still dealt with in silos.
On the more positive side, Parliaments that have proper SDGs coordination structures (Parliamentary Committees or caucuses) are doing better in their legislative and oversight roles even though, generally, such structures are lacking in authority and resources. A few Parliaments are proactively monitoring SDG implementation domestically and working across borders with other Parliaments to share best practices. Overall, parliamentary engagement in the government-led Voluntary National Reviews remains weak, though a growing number of Parliaments are providing input into the reviews.
However, the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change call for deep transformations in every country that require complementary actions by governments, Parliaments, civil society, science, business, etc. Yet stakeholders lack a shared understanding of how the 17 SDGs can be operationalised. These transformations are linked with priority investments and regulatory challenges calling for actions by well-defined parts of government working with business and civil society.
• How complex can it be for Parliaments and MPs to contribute to Agenda 2030 and the operationalisation of the SDG targets?
• How can Parliaments navigate this complexity and bring their ‘big political guns’ to the table to enable the 2030 Agenda and the operationalisation of its SDGs?
UNDP works with Parliaments around the world to strengthen their capacities to fulfill their institutional responsibilities and to work more effectively as part of a system of partners, including with national Ministries, local governments, independent oversight bodies and civil society. This support helps to ensure that elections, national planning, budgeting and law-making efforts are more inclusive, gender-responsive and risk-informed. More specifically, UNDP works to strengthen parliamentary bodies by:
boosting efforts to reform and improve Parliaments and local assemblies, making them more representative, open and accountable;
delivering training and building skills among Parliamentarians and their Secretariats on legislative scrutiny, gender equality and international human rights obligations, and critical sustainable development issues that Parliaments need to act on;
enhancing parliamentary transparency, using new technologies, tools and capacities in data, budgeting and finance; and
Brokering partnerships between Parliaments and other relevant state and non-state governance actors – e.g., supreme audit institutions (SAI) and civil society organisations (CSOs).
UNDP can support Parliaments and Parliamentarians in their legislative, oversight and representative functions. UNDP can provide technical assistance, training and knowledgesharing platforms to strengthen Parliamentary institutions and help legislators effectively contribute to national development agendas and also advance climate action. UNDP and its partners foster dialogue and cooperation among Parliaments, civil society organisations and supreme audit institutions to advance the Sustainable Development Goals. UNDP has developed significant knowledge and tools to increase the capacity of Parliaments to implement the SDGs.
Traditionally-delivered democratic governance – including parliamentary accountability – is critical, but on its own insufficient to address the intersecting global confidence, planetary, poverty and inequality crises. Apart from institutional strengthening, UNDP programmes support Parliaments to form more constructive and systematic partnerships with Executive governments, civil society, independent oversight bodies, and new and old media. Governance systems that result from such partnerships are demonstrably more inclusive; leading to more effective oversight of how services are delivered; and to laws and budgets that look beyond the interests of the elites.
How can Parliaments enhance their role in boosting SDG implementation efforts at the national level?
The programme for consolidating Economic Governance and Public Finance Management Systems (PFMS) in the PALOP-TL countries, aka the Pro PALOP-TL SAI Programme, empowers Parliaments, Government Ministries, independent oversight bodies and civil society on a systemic basis for more open, transparent and accountable public finance management (PFM) in all six Portuguese-speaking African countries (Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe) and TimorLeste. This ‘whole-of-society’ model has proven to boost the overall governance transparency and openness – key ingredients to build democratic accountability and trust.
Since 2014, this UNDP EU-funded multi-country southsouth / triangular cooperation programme has been building effective partnerships among state and non-state public finance management institutions and actors in these six countries. These partnerships were mainly operationalised through multi-stakeholder communities of practice and multi-country parliamentary high-level working groups involving MPs and parliamentary staff, Supreme Audit Institutions’ auditors and technical staff, as well as Government officials (Finances and Planning). For almost a decade now (2014-23), more than 40 PFM officials in those 6 countries (plus Brazil and Portugal) have been working together to strengthen transparency and accountability in Public Finance Management Systems (PFMS).
At the midpoint of the deadline for achieving the commitments set out in the Agenda 2030 and with evidence pointing to insufficient progress towards the SDGs, it is now paramount to use the lessons learnt and the policy space gained along those years to tackle hurdles to sustainable and inclusive development, in a global context of decreasing Official Development Assistance (ODA)/Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
For almost a decade now, this UNDP-led EU-funded initiative has been able to open a policy dialogue space, gathering decision-makers and policymakers from PFM state (Executive, courts of auditors and other control institutions, and Parliaments) and non-state institutions (NGOs, Professional Bodies, Interest Networks, Media, etc.) in eight countries (representing four world regions – Africa, America, Asia/ Pacific, Europe) conducive to systems and institutional change. This successful partnership between UNDP and the EU has now been renewed until 2026.
What are the lessons learnt from Pro PALOP-TL SAI implementation?
Transformation is systems’ change…
• In the past 10 years, transparency and accountability have definitively moved to the centre of policymaking and politics in the PALOP-TL countries. Attitudes have changed…
• Today, government programmes and National Development Plans are clearly focusing on strengthening Public Finance Management Systems (PFMS) and economic governance. Priorities have been updated…
• The referred policy dialogue space is more and more permissive to address PFMS consolidation, transparency and accountability challenges. Legal and institutional reforms have followed this trend. Systems are changing…
• The need to accelerate the pace of progress towards the Agenda 2030 is putting pressure on Domestic Resource Mobilisation capacities in most countries, including those covered by the Pro PALOP-TL SAI programme. There will be no transformation if business is still as usual...
