Four governance reforms to strengthen the SDGs

The impact of the Sustainable Development Goals on global policies on sustainable consumption and production

While some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rely on the support of established international organizations and regimes, others lack strong institutions in their governance areas. This raises the question of whether the SDGs can contribute to strengthening these less institutionalized areas in global governance, which would make these goals important factors in advancing international institutionalization. We study this question with a focus on SDG 12, which targets sustainable consumption and production. By analysing in-depth 49 documents and 19 expert interviews, we trace institutional development (2012-2022) focusing on two initiatives, the 10-Year Framework of Programmes for Sustainable Consumption and Production and the later One Planet Network. We indicate mechanisms through which SDGs have influenced international institutionalization processes and some conditions for this impact. However, while the SDGs might offer a temporary impetus to further institutionalization, they do not provide a lasting solution to the challenge of advancing global institutionalization.

Strengthening Global Health Research

Global Health is a young discipline with equity of health and services as its core value. The discipline has a tradition of close links between practice and research in line with the 'Health for All' declaration launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1978. The multitude of existential health crises facing mankind require a research agenda in line with Global Health Research core values and methods, such as transdisciplinary collaboration, long time series of population-based observations and multifaceted interventions. Knowledge gaps cover climate effects on health and mechanisms for global spread and control of antibiotic resistance across species. Such health threats are preferably studied at Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites, a scientific infrastructure for Global Health Research in Africa and Asia, that gains to expand and monitor climate parameters and include sites in the northern hemisphere. Global Health Scientists together with science societies can ensure long-term funding of a global network of population-based health-climate sites. Global Health Scientists and scientific journals should jointly provide data and evidence on global health to governance bodies on regional, national and global levels, in particular to WHO and United Nations in charge of the programme with Sustainable Development Goals.