The Sustainable Development Goals Regime: a Case-Study About Localization As Variable of Effectiveness Of

The Sustainable Development Goals Regime: A case-study about localization as variable of effectiveness of

SDG 5 (gender equality) in Denmark and the Netherlands

Author: J. T. Langewen | Supervisor: Dr. R.J. Pistorius | Second Reader: Dr. M. Parvezi Amineh

Master Thesis - January 2018 Graduate School of Social Sciences Political Science Track: International Relations

The Sustainable Development Goals Regime:

A case-study about localization as variable of effectiveness of SDG 5 (gender equality) in Denmark and The Netherlands

Master Thesis 26 January 2018

Author: J.T. Langewen (11255897) Faculty: Graduate School of Social Sciences Department: Political Science Track: International Relations Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Supervisor: Dr. R.J. Pistorius Faculty: Graduate School of Social Sciences Department: Political Science Email: [email protected]

Second Reader: Dr. M. Parvezi Amineh Faculty: Graduate School of Social Sciences Department: Political Science Email: [email protected]

Source cover image: UN, 2016

Acknowledgement

During my internship at the Permanent Mission of the Netherlands to the United Nations in New York (February 2017-July 2017) I supported the policy officer working, amongst other things, on the Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs]. My interest was triggered and as such I wanted to broaden my knowledge in this area. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor Dr. R. J. Pistorius for helping me transfer my thinking into more academic and theoretical reasoning during the course of this research project. Next, I would like to thank the second reader of my thesis, Dr. M. Parvezi Amineh. Additionally, while writing my thesis, I had the chance to do an internship at C-Change, an Amsterdam-based social enterprise, with a mission to trigger and equip all sectors, most importantly businesses, investors and governments, to make a difference and contribute to the SDGs. I would like to thank my C-Change colleagues, especially Carolien de Bruin, for her sharing her knowledge, as well as the opportunities she gave me to attend several meetings and conferences which acted as input for my thesis. Lastly I am thankful for my friends and parents with whom I could have reflective discussions as well as their abilities to provide me with the necessary distractions.

Thank you,

Joyce Langewen Amsterdam, 26 January 2018

Abstract

In 2015 the Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] were adopted by the United Nations. This thesis argues that those goals can be seen as a new regime in international regime theory. In international cooperation theory the effectiveness theme is the newest (O’Neill, 2004:163), therefore this thesis conducts a case-study in which effectiveness of the SDG Regime is analysed. The following research question is formulated: “Which governance strategy most effectively localizes the Sustainable Development Goals Regime and how is this reflected in the participation of stakeholders such as private sector, civil society, knowledge institutions, and subnational governments?”. This research question is based on the assumption that localization is an important variable to measure regime effectiveness. A literature study was conducted to support this hypothesis and support for the variable localization as determinant factor in SDG regime effectiveness was found in public policy literature (Mitchell, 2010) that identified three variables for effectiveness: output, outcome & impact. Outcome can be seen as a synonym of implementation, which can on the basis of Lim & Tsutsi (2012) their academic framework be identified as localization. Localization is important because it brings the SDGs back to the grassroots and as such can formulate relevant action. In a case study comparing Denmark and the Netherlands on the basis of SDG 5 – gender equality this localization variable is explored. On the basis of this thesis, the best governance strategy to most effectively localize the SDG Regime, is to formally adopt a national strategy by the government, that was crafted by a diverse range of stakeholders, like was done in Denmark.

KEYWORDS Sustainable Development Goals, 2030 Agenda, Regime Effectiveness, Localization, Gender Equality, Implementation, Monitoring, Governance

Contents

Acknowledgement ...... 5 Abstract ...... 6 Glossary ...... 10 1. Introduction ...... 12 1.1 Motive ...... 12 1.2 Epistemologies in International Regime Theory ...... 13 1.3 SDG Agenda ...... 15 1.3.1 What is the SDG Agenda and how did it come into practice? ...... 15 1.3.2 How is the 2030 Agenda monitored? ...... 18 1.3.3 SDG 5: Gender equality ...... 19 1.4 Efficiency and Relevance of UN Agreements ...... 22 1.4.1 Societal relevance of UN agreements ...... 22 1.4.2 Scientific contribution ...... 23 1.5 Thesis Outline ...... 23 Methodology ...... 25 2.1 Explanation of Research Question ...... 25 2.2 Case-study Selection ...... 26 2.3 Unit of Analyses ...... 27 2.4 Qualitative research ...... 27 2.4.1 Literature and document analyses ...... 27 2.4.2 Meetings and conversations ...... 28 2.5 Reliability & Validity ...... 29 3. Theoretical Framework ...... 31 3.1 Environmental Regimes ...... 31 3.1.1 Debates in International Regime Theory...... 31 3.1.2 What is an environmental regime and why can the SDGs be considered as one? ...... 33 3.1.3 Why and how are environmental regimes gaining importance? ...... 34

3.2 Regime Effectiveness ...... 36 3.2.1 What is regime effectiveness? ...... 36 3.2.2 How can regime effectiveness be measured? ...... 37 3.2.3 How can one measure outcome and as such effectiveness of the SDG Regime? ...... 39 3.3 Localization ...... 41 3.3.1 What role do stakeholders play in localization? ...... 42 3.3.2 How can the SDG Regime effectively be localized? ...... 43 3.4 Conclusion ...... 45 4. Localization of SDG 5 - gender equality & women empowerment ...... 46 4.1 Why does SDG 5 localization matters?...... 46 4.2 How can the SDGs be monitored? ...... 47 4.3 What can be said about international progress of SDG 5? ...... 51 4.4 Conclusion ...... 53 5. Case-study: The localization of SDG 5 in Denmark and the Netherlands ...... 54 5.1 What can be said about the position of Denmark and the Netherlands in the world? ...... 54 5.2 What can be said about the institutional structure and the government’s strategy of Denmark and the Netherlands to implement the SDGs? ...... 56 5.2.1 Denmark ...... 56 5.2.2 Netherlands ...... 59 5.2.3 Conclusion ...... 62 5.3 What can be said about localization of the SDGs in Denmark and the Netherlands? ...... 63 5.3.1 Denmark ...... 63 5.3.2 Netherlands ...... 65 5.3.3 Conclusion ...... 68 5.4 What can be said about the effectiveness of the governance strategies of Denmark and the Netherlands? ...... 68 5.5 What recommendations can be made to effectively localize the SDG Regime? ...... 69 6. Conclusion and Reflection ...... 71 Bibliography ...... 74 Appendix ...... 81 I. The Sustainable Development Goals ...... 81 II. Official SDG 5 Targets & Indicators ...... 83 III. List of meetings and conversations ...... 84 IV. Spotlight on SDG 5 – UN Women ...... 86 V. OECD Data SDG 5 ...... 88

VI. Commitment Cards JCI ...... 89

Glossary

CoP Conference of the Parties CSOs Civil Society Organisations DIHR Danish Institute for Human Rights DSGC Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition ECOSOC United Nations Economic and Social Council EU European Union FDI Foreign Direct Investment FGM/C Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting FLOW Funding, Leadership and Opportunities for Women GA United Nations General Assembly GDP Gross Domestic Product GPEDC Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation HLPF High Level Political Forum IGOs Intergovernmental Organisations IO International Organisations JCI Junior Chamber International KIT Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropical Institute Netherlands) LDCs Least Developed Countries LOGIN Local Governance Initiative and Network MDGs Millennium Development Goals MICs Middle Income Countries NGOs Non-governmental organisations NSOs National Statistical Offices ODA Official Development Assistance OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers SDGs Sustainable Development Goals

SDSN Sustainable Development Solutions Network SG Secretary General of the United Nations SIDS Small Island Developing States SMEs Small and Medium Enterprises SRHR Sexual and Reproductive Health and Reproductive Rights UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Program UNFPA United Nations Population Fund UNGC United Nations Global Compact UN-Habitat United Nations Human Settlements Program VNG Vereniging voor Nederlandse Gemeente (Association of Netherlands Municipalities)

1. Introduction

In 2015 the Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] were adopted by the United Nations. This ‘Agenda 2030’ is the predecessor of the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] and includes a new sustainable dimension. This chapter will explain where these goals are about as well as how they were constructed. It will also introduces the SDGs as new regime in international regime theory for which some background about the traditional epistemologies in international regime theory is given. Additionally , this chapter introduces the research question for this thesis.

1.1 Motive The member states of the United Nations [UN] adopted the Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs} in September 2015. The SDGs are a universal agenda of sustainable development, calling on all nations to pursue a holistic strategy that combines economic development, social inclusion and environmental sustainability (SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017). Although the SDG agenda was signed by nation states, in the literature there has been consensus that such global agendas are no longer the purview of the nation-state, but also of non-sovereign actors including non-governmental organisations [NGOs], intergovernmental organisations [IGOs], market-oriented actors and knowledge-based communities (Auer, 2000:155). The nation-state was taken for granted as the prime of political power in the past (Hooghe & Marks, 2003:238, Bulkeley, 2005:876), however because of a growing number of aspects of human affairs the involvement of multiple political communities and multiple governing and networking entities were needed (Blank, 2010:510,513; Himley, 2008:434,435). As such, in order to successful integrate and localize global governance agendas according to Lamy (2011:727), citizens interests and a strong feeling of belonging and togetherness is needed. Nevertheless, the SDG agenda is still an agreement signed by nation-states, so in that sense it can be considered as a new international regime. However, the field of traditional regime theories have been opened up by a lot of work by scholars that question the basic assumptions underlying traditional epistemologies (O’Neill, 2004:153). This more constructivist area emphasizes the social

12 character of International Relations and started to generate new work in cooperation theory to see how states interact with other stakeholders. In this international cooperation theory the effectiveness theme is the newest (O’Neill, 2004:163). This thesis will consider these new academic insides while exploring the SDG Regime. As such the research question of this thesis is:

Which governance strategy most effectively localizes the Sustainable Development Goals Regime and how is this reflected in the participation of stakeholders such as private sector, civil society, knowledge institutions, and subnational governments?

This remainder of this introduction chapter tries to give a definition of the word regime and covers a bit of background in the more traditional epistemologies in regime theory. Hence, it describes why the constructivist approach is chosen to best explain the related research field of the SDGs. The aim of this chapter is to formulate the meaning of the SDG Regime. Also it will touches upon the theme of efficiency of international agreements and therefore tries to justify the relevance of the above research question.

1.2 Epistemologies in International Regime Theory The definition of the word ‘regime’ varies across academics as well as between sub-disciplines. Some scholars use language regarding ‘institutions’ (Milner, 1993:494) or ‘institutionalism’ (Keohane, 1995) while others use terminology like ‘policy coordination’ (Haas, 1992), ‘governance system’ (Young, 1994) or ‘institutional dynamics’ (Young, 2010). Krasner (1982:186) defined international regimes as "implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations". In this definition principles are beliefs of fact and causation. Norms can be seen as standards of behaviour and defined in terms of rights and obligations. Rules are prescriptions for action and lastly decision-making procedures are common practices to implement collective choice (Krasner, 1982:186). Powerful regimes serve crucial functional needs and could be considered as independent actors in international politics. Although ultimately states create and sustain regimes, once institutionalised, regimes can exert influence in world politics. The above definition brings us three relevant questions (Hasenclever, 1996) that could also be asked when one analyses the SDG Regime. The first two questions “What accounts for cooperation in rule-based settings in international relations?” and “How do international regimes affect state behaviour?” point to a causal linkage, between government behaviour and regimes, as touched upon in the research question. The third question “Which factors determine the success, stability and effectiveness of

13 international regimes?” is about regime effectiveness and thereby one could analyse the success that could be achieved while localizing the SDGs and involving the participation of stakeholders.

Depending on the school of thought within International Relations, the degree of influence of international regimes in shaping state behaviour is described differently by scholars. It is important to know about the existence of those different school of thoughts as it reflects that the perception of institutional mechanisms are not fixed. Instead, it is debatable and influenced by the epistemological position of the analyst and the context in which a regime functions. First there are the realists (e.g. Keohane, Stein) who focus on the role and balance of power. In their view, regimes are principles, norms and decision-making procedures reflecting the interests of the most powerful states in the system. They believe that regimes only matter when independent decision making leads to undesired outcomes (Krasner, 1982: 194). Secondly the (neo)liberals (e.g. Waltz) believe that regimes are principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures that solve market-failure problems. Neoliberals therefore assume that states only act in their own interest (Krasner, 1982:191) and as such do not take regimes seriously. They think that whenever basic causal variables change, so will regimes change (Krasner, 1982:194). The third and newest school of thought belongs to the cognitivists or constructivists (e.g. Young) who emphasize the dynamics of knowledge, communication and identities (Hasenclever 1996:178; Hasenclever 1997:1). The constructivists think that: ”the actions of individuals cannot be understood in isolation from their social environment with the rationalist’ emphasis on ‘methodological individualism’, in which the central focus is on ‘individual human action’” (Risse, 2009:145). It can be explained by the concept of sociological institutionalism. In sociological institutionalism, international institutions are not instruments to efficiently solve collective problems, but on the contrary, their goals, designs, and procedures reflect collectively held norms and values and a common identity (Richardson & Mazey, 2015:53). As such constructivists accept regimes as a fundamental part of all patterned human interaction, including behaviour in the international system (Krasner, 1982:194). They believe in the power of non-state actors, and therefore see a role for e.g. NGOs and epistemic communities.

It is this last school of thought that both the SDG Agenda and the research question of this thesis is based upon. Constructivists view politics as socially constructed so that actors (e.g. leaders, policymakers, organisations and states) can change their values and norms and, consequently, their strategies and policies (Ruggie, 1998). The SDG Agenda is drafted as an ambitious, inclusive and progressive plan for a faired world and it is the outcome of the most comprehensive process of

14 consultation that the UN has ever undertaken (Hawkes & Buse, 2016). It can be seen as a ‘blueprint for a better future’. For clarification it is useful to explain the distinction in terminology used in this thesis between SDG Regime and SDG Agenda/2030 Agenda. A regime gives society its character and therefore is a specific manner of life or the form of life as living together (Strauss, 1988). The term SDG Regime is a political system of beliefs, rules and cultural/social norms that expresses a global vision towards sustainable development for all. The term SDG Agenda, also called Agenda 2030 refers to the agreed commitment made to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development by 2030 world-wide, ensuring that no one is left behind. The next paragraph explains both the making and the meaning of this SDG Agenda.

1.3 SDG Agenda 1.3.1 What is the SDG Agenda and how did it come into practice? In September 2015 the world leaders adopted a new suite of development goals, the Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] also called Agenda 2030 (Langford, 2016:167). These goals were developed as continuum of the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] which ended in 2015. The 2030 Agenda is a new type of development agenda, distinctly different from its predecessor, most importantly adding a new element: sustainability. The MDGs, had a much narrower focus in terms of geographical focus and development ambitions of the goals (Sachs, 2012). The MDGs aimed at strengthening the Global South in terms of development, but the SDGs have an inclusive focus on the South and the North (Sachs, 2012: 2206). Furthermore, the SDGs integrate economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development into its goals and targets, and address the systemic barriers to sustainable development (Lucas et al., 2016). The universal agenda of the SDGs do not only mean solidarity between countries (like in the MDGs), but also represents a shared responsibility and action by all. As a result, the 2030 Agenda shifts the policy space for global development from development cooperation alone to essentially all policy areas on national and international levels. Furthermore, it shifts the role of high-income countries from that of donors to that of actors that must deliver both internationally and domestically (Lucas et al., 2016). The creation of the SDGs was agreed upon during the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012. Consequently, the goals (see figure 1.1 & Appendix I) were first mentioned in the outcome document “The Future We Want”, where after a 30-member Open Working Group of the General Assembly [GA} was tasked to prepare a proposal on the SDGs.

Figure 1.1 The Sustainable Development Goals

Source: UN, 2015 Besides the MDGs, there are however three other notable Agreements that preceded or are related to the SDGs and therefore can be considered as part of this SDG Regime. In 2002 the Monterrey Consensus emerged during the international conference on Financing for Development [FfD]. This text states a clear acknowledgement of the role of private investments in furthering the cause of development around the globe and can be seen as the beginning of a transition of development finance (de Bruin, et al., 2017). Before this area was predominantly occupied by Official Development Assistance [ODA] or charitable contributions. Another important agreement is the adoption of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda [AAAA] in July 2015 which is actually a continuum of the Monterrey Consensus. This Agenda outlines and is the foundation of the implementation of the SDG Agenda. In this Agenda finance is the key component for the success of the realisation of the SDG and as such it outlines a holistic and forward looking framework and commits to concrete actions to deliver (UN, 2015a: 1). The AAAA aligns financing flows with economic, social and environmental priorities and it lists 300+ measures touching on various sources of finance. The action areas mentioned in this agenda (UN, 2015a) are (1)Domestic public resources, (2)Domestic and international private business and finance, (3)International development cooperation, (4)International trade as an engine for development, (5)Debt and debt sustainability, (6)Addressing systemic issues & (7)Science, technology, innovation and capacity- building. The third notable agreement is the Paris Agreement of Climate Change, adopted on 12 December 2015 at the COP21 Conference. The agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C (European Commission [EC], 2017a).

Figure 1.2 Overview important agreements made in 2015

Source: Localizing the SDGs, 2018

Source: Localizing the SDGs, 2018 As defined in the Rio+20 outcome document, the SDGs needed to be ‘action-oriented, concise and easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational, global in nature and universally applicable to all countries while taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development’ (UN, 2012). Although such a statement sounds very promising, the reality of implementing global level goals onto sub-global levels is much more difficult. Mostly this has to do with the interdisciplinary nature of sustainable development. Across a range of development levels between countries, all with different interests of resident stakeholders, core concepts like sustainability must – in all its dimensions – be interpreted in the same way, or otherwise be open for differentiated but agreed interpretations (Glaser 2012:35, Sachs 2012:2208). In the end, the SDGs are 17 goals, 169 targets (or sub-goals) which commit all governments to tackle for example climate change, double energy efficiency or halve per capita food waste, but many of the universal targets focus on issues that have traditionally been considered as ‘domestic’ or outside of the domain of sustainable development (e.g. reduction of income equality or domestic violence) (Langford, 2016: 168).

As such this new agenda also gets two principal critiques which questions the efficiency, something also the research question touches upon. The most important critique is that this agenda has too much commitments which makes it more decorative than communicative and operational (Langford, 2016:168). Multiple reasons can be found to explain why the list of SDGs and its targets is so long.

First, the MDGs were blamed of their simplicity which had largely unambitious targets that could easily be met by Middle Income Countries [MICs], but did not say anything about the Least Developed Countries [LDCs] and Small Island Development States [SIDS] (Langford, 2016:169). As such dissatisfaction with the prior regime disproportionately shapes the formulation of the new one. Another reason why the SDGs became expansive is that the process of drafting was highly participatory (Langford, 2016:170). The MDGs were endorsed by the UN Secretary-General of that time (Kofi Annan) without a public discussion, and as such it took the GA four years before it could officially endorse the MDGs legitimately. For the SDGs over 50 country consultations, multiple global thematic consultations and a worldwide citizen survey, all accompanied by parallel NGO, private corporations, expert and state initiatives were conducted resulting in a range of diverse interests which were defended by the actors (Langford, 2016:170-171). Even though the drafting was considered participatory, the 2030 Agenda indeed has a long list of goals and targets and therefore the second critique on the SDGs is that because of the many commitments, a lot of political compromises could be made and as a result the question arises whether it is really a transformative agenda? The question that remains is therefore whether the government can effectively involve stakeholders (as mentioned in the research question) into the implementation of this new set of standards, or in other words; the SDG Regime. Regime effectiveness has everything to do with monitoring of the Agenda, something the next paragraph will touch upon.

1.3.2 How is the 2030 Agenda monitored? To see whether the 2030 Agenda is a transformative agenda and progress is being made in the world, each year the High Level Political Forum [HLPF] is organised at the UN which has a central role in the follow-up and review of implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The highlight of these HLPFs are presentations given by countries (for which they write reports) to show insight of the national implementation of the SDGs. These so called Voluntary National Reviews [VNRs] contain many valuable information. One of the elements many countries describe in the report is the national institutional embedding of SDG coordination (MINBUZA, 2017). However, there are some problems with this monitoring progress as it is only periodic monitoring, and it is voluntary, so there are not standards that need to be met. Also, it does not set out the rights to civil society participation in the process and fails to mention or legitimate broader forms of political, judicial, administrative, media and economic accountability that would help ensure the goals are actually met (Langford, 2016:173). Besides, the goals itself are weak on global

18 partnership and the corresponding targets are rarely quantified, which makes the institutional framework for monitoring progress not that much better than the framework from the MDGs. Because of the many targets of the SDGs, the central feature of the review process needs to be based on the 230 indicators. These indicators ideally need to be well-chosen, valid and reliable, but it turned out to be really hard to come up to an agreed consensus for these indicators. They have only been agreed upon in 2017 after a long (political) negotiation because firstly, states failed to set criteria for indicator selection in order to give guidelines to the UN technocrats and national statisticians tasked with selecting the indicators (Langford, 2016:173). Consequently, this resulted in negotiations between representatives from states from some countries and representatives from national statistical agencies from other countries (not in every country in the world the national statistical agencies are independent from the government). The difficulties had to do with national interest as some countries did not want to look bad while failing on a specific indicator. As said, in 2017 the indicators were finally adopted, although the Inter-Agency and Expert Group stated that they envision further methodological work to be conducted, with a view to continuously improving the indicators and the availability of data, in order to remain an important political and expert space for indicator development (Langford, 2016:173-174). Especially because in the eventually agreed indicator list there are so called Tier III for which an internationally agreed methodology has not yet been agreed. A side note must be made to say that it will remain questionable if there will ever be consensus on all the indicators, as in reaction of the adoption of the framework in June 2017, some states were already skeptical (Author’s notes, 2017).

1.3.3 SDG 5: Gender equality As mentioned in paragraph 1.3.1 the SDG Agenda has a long list of goals and targets. It makes it interesting to analyse why some of the targets are translated into existing public policies while others are not. However in order to say something about effectiveness and participation of stakeholders a focus needs to be applied. One of the strengths of the SDG regime is that it links economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development in order to break through the silo’s. Unfortunately, according to a study by the German Council to Sustainable Development not all individual goals are so well balanced within themselves (Cutter et al., 2015:3). Goal 7 on Energy is the most balanced of all goals, closely followed by Goal 12 on Sustainable Consumption and Production. Goal 5 on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment is the least balanced of the goals, mostly focused on social issues and neglects to address environmental and economic dimensions (Cutter et al., 2015:4). Since Goal 5 is least balance, it is interesting to see whether it can still be an effective Goal. As such, through a case-study this research is based on this goal.

The full name of SDG 5 is Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. This goal has the aim to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls, since this is a basic human right. However according to several studies it is also a crucial factor to accelerate sustainable development, because empowering women and girls has a multiplier effect to drive up economic growth and development across (UNDP, 2018). In box 1.1 below the targets that belong to this goal are showed and in Appendix II the related official indicators can be found.

The SDG Agenda is an interdisciplinary agenda, which requires the participation of multiple disciplines and sectors to be delivered (Annan-Diab & Molinari, 2017:73). It is also indivisible, in a sense that it must be implemented as a whole, in an integrated rather than a fragmented manner, recognising that the different goals and targets are closely interlinked (EC, 2017b) (see figure 1.3). As such other goals will also improve while effectively implementing SDG 5. Evidence has shown that women’s economic productivity reduces infant and maternal mortality, improves nutrition, promotes health and increases the chances of education for future generations (UNDCF, UN Women & UNDP, 2016). More specifically while looking at the relationship between SDG 5 and other SDGs, one can understand the interdisciplinary approach of this SDG regime. Looking at SDG 2 (Poverty Eradication) women with equal rights are better educated, healthier, and have greater access to land, jobs and financial resources. Their increased earning power in turn raises household incomes. And evidence shows that where women have greater involvement in household decision making, children go on to have better prospects and higher well-being, reducing poverty in future (Morrison et al., 2007:2).

Related to SDG 6 (Water & Sanitation) inadequate sanitation contributes to women’s health issues and violence against women and girls. Women and girls have to deal with a disproportionate burden of trying to collect water where there is no pumped water (UN Women, 2005). Furthermore, gender discrimination underpins pervasive economic inequality (SDG 10) between men and women. Women earn 24% less than men globally on average (UNDP, 2015). A final example is related to SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Institutions). Gender equality is a foundational enabler for just, peaceful and inclusive societies. During wars or conflict, women often have fewer resources to protect themselves and, with children, frequently make up the majority of displaced and refugee populations. War tactics such as sexual violence specifically target them (PwC. 2016:4).

Figure 1.3 Interlinkages of the Sustainable Development Goals

Source: EC, 2017b

It goes without saying that the level of gender equality will not be the same in every country and that although there is one agreed list of indicators adopted to measure progress, this does not mean that there will be one-size fits all solutions for improvements. Instead, there is need to practical, and adaptable mechanisms and instruments in which local context is important. Localizing development means taking into account subnational contexts in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, from the setting of goals and targets, to determining the means of implementation and using indicators to measure and monitor progress. It is also putting the territories and their peoples’ priorities, needs and resources at the centre of sustainable development. (Localize the SDGs, 2017). It is therefore

21 necessary to focus on some specific countries in order to get closer to answering which government strategy will most effectively localizes the SDGs. As such the case-study will focus on two developed countries to show that this new SDG Regime is different from the MDG era and to find out whether it is also a purposeful regime to realise change for high-income countries. The focus will be on Denmark and the Netherlands because both countries have a different Ministry that is responsible for SDG implementation, which makes it interesting countries to compare. In Denmark the Ministry of Finance is responsible for the national SDG implementation whereas in the Netherlands the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responsible.

1.4 Efficiency and Relevance of UN Agreements Many people nowadays question the efficiency and effectiveness of the UN (Aljazeera, 2017; The Economist, 2017) and as such agreements that are made. Once people lack to see the added value of big international agreements like the SDG Agenda, the future of international organisations can be in danger due to a reduce in funding.

1.4.1 Societal relevance of UN agreements The SDG Agenda is voluntary and there is no enforcement capacity to force states into their desired process of sustainable development. It is therefore often be said that the UN tries to influence government policies through its norms (Runhaar & Lafferty, 2009; Goertz & Diehl, 1992). A norm can as such be seen as ‘the’ appropriate behaviour. The UN is therefore ‘promoting mutual understanding and common interest, trough setting norms’ (Jackson & Sørensen, 2013:253). Governments still are the main forces behind the implementation of these norms. The effectiveness of those norms set by the UN and rule-guided state actions that derive from these norms, is subject to debate, hence the research question of this thesis that relates to the localization of the SDG Regime. Various external factors can be of importance to influence government behaviour, making causality of the effects of UN norms on state action difficult to prove (Cortell and Davis, 1996; Kratochwil and Ruggie, 1986). As such localization and the involvement of the different stakeholders will be interesting to explore, since this is most likely the most important factor of regime effectiveness. It is societally relevant to have more insights how the Danish and Dutch governments act on this agreed SDG Agenda. Also it is interesting to see it they attempt to influence the effect of such regimes through their public policies and to what extend they give space for other stakeholders such as the private sector, civil society, knowledge institutions, and subnational governments. This can give insights if any progress is made in terms of sustainable development and as such that

22 internationally agreed Agendas, like the SDG Regime, can contribute to a better world.

1.4.2 Scientific contribution In international cooperation theory the effectiveness theme is the newest (O’Neill, 2004:163). This thesis will consider new academic insides while exploring the SDG Regime and therefore tries to give more insights in this new discipline and the related regime theory. Theoretically, it also contributes to the academic debate on how norms set by international organisations influence government and local policies. Furthermore by engaging in SDG related research, universities can draw several benefits. The SDGs provide a new and integrated way to communicate and demonstrate to external stakeholders – including government, funders and the community (Kestin et al., 2017:9). As such it helps showing their relevance. Furthermore the SDGs provide a common framework for different sectors and organisations to connect and work together on shared interests. This will give universities opportunities to form new collaborations with government, industry, and the community in both research and education, which contributes to the re-thinking of roles of universities in which universities can be more responsive to societal needs and to become agents of change towards solving global challenges (Kestin et al., 2017:9).

1.5 Thesis Outline This introduction chapter stated the research question and will be followed by five more chapters. Chapter 2 explains how this research was conducted and explains the motivation to select a case study. Also it argues the reliability and validity of the research. Chapter 3 presents the theoretical framework of the thesis, which illustrates the development of the research field of international regimes. In this research field four different debates could be identified. The first debate is concerned with the operationalisation of the concept of international regimes. The second debate examined why international regimes are formed, and why they change. The third debate considers the causes of variation of regime effectiveness between different regimes. The fourth debate, which is the main focus of this thesis, is the debate concerning the operationalisation of the concept of regime effectiveness. There will be concluded that localization can be seen as an important variable for regime effectiveness and as such in paragraph 3.3 the term localization is explained. Chapter 4 considers the relevance of localization while looking at SDG 5 and touch upon the difficulties that are encountered while monitoring SDG progress.

In Chapter 5 the results of the case-study are presented. It can be concluded that in both Denmark and the Netherlands the governments believe that participation and partnerships with multiple stakeholders is key while implementing the SDG Agenda. However, both countries have a different approach in doing so. This chapter tries to examine which approach is most effective by looking at different initiatives that are set-up in both countries. The chapter concludes by giving recommendations how to localize the SDG Regime. In the final chapter an answer to the research question is given. Also, this chapter discusses the shortcomings of this research.

Methodology

This chapter defines the research question and explains the choice for a case-study. It also discusses the choice for conducting a qualitative research as the goal is to explore, explain and understand the different governance strategies that are used to localize the SDGs. Additionally this chapter explains the data that has been collected and discusses the reliability and validity of qualitative research.

2.1 Explanation of Research Question This thesis is based upon the following research question: Which governance strategy most effectively localizes the Sustainable Development Goal Regime and how is this reflected in the participation of stakeholders such as private sector, civil society, knowledge institutions, and subnational governments?

Firstly, governance can be defined in various ways but for the purposes of this study, we define governance as “a set of processes, procedures, resources, institutions and actors that determine how decisions are made and implemented” (Secco et al, 2011:105). Depending on the governance setup, in theory the SDG Regime can be imposed from above and enforced externally (e.g. by state), it can be crafted by local users, self-imposed and enforced internally (e.g. by local community) or it can be a mixture of both approaches (e.g. joint governance) (Macura et al., 2015:2). Looking at the existing governance structures in both the Netherlands and Denmark (see paragraph 5.2) it is most likely that joint governance will be the used approach in both countries. Still it will be a challenge to translate the SDGs to relevant national action while at the same time trying to stick to the global ambitions. Many SDG targets are broadly defined, vague in terms of what is expected, address multiple issues at once and do not specify whether they concern national or global phenomena (Lucas et al., 2016). The national implementation will vary, given differences in needs, capabilities and demands. Also the entry point adopted (e.g. domestic policy agenda, development cooperation agenda, international policy agenda) strongly influences how targets will be interpreted (Lucas et al., 2016).

The hypothesis of this study is that localization of the SDG Regime is key to effectively implement the agenda nationally. In order to test the hypothesis, this research tries to draft a theoretical framework in which localization is considered as the most important factor of regime effectiveness, because the assumption is made that a positive correlation between localization and regime effectiveness exists. To test the hypothesis a case study is conducted on the implementation of SDG 5 (gender equality) in Denmark and the Netherlands in order to make an empirical contribution.

2.2 Case-study Selection In the previous chapter (see 1.2) the SDG Agenda is explored. It is important to realise that the 17 goals that were adopted are bringing along 169 targets. These goals and targets can be monitored and reviewed using 231 global indicators that were agreed upon by the UN Statistical Commission. However, not all of those 230 official indicators have well-established definitions (Bertelsmann Stiftung & SDSN Network, 2017:1). As such implementation of the SDGs will rely on countries’ own sustainable development policies, plans and programmes. Due to time constraints for this research it is not possible to analyse all countries and all SDGs. This research will therefore focus on two developed countries (Denmark and the Netherlands) as explained in paragraph 1.3.3. As such the method of comparative analysis will be used. This is a methodology within political science that is often used in the study of political systems, institutions or processes and can be done across a local, regional, national and international scale. The reason to compare two countries, is that experience has shown that both the media and the public tend to be much more interested in data if that information is presented in terms of international rankings (Schwegmann, 2017). This dynamic is also visible within ministries, where international rankings generate considerable momentum to improve results. Using the approach of comparative analysis will therefore create a higher added value to this research. As explained in paragraph 1.3.3 the case- study will focus on SDG 5. Moreover, case studies are useful for measuring the size of the correlation, in this case the link between localization and effectiveness of the SDG Regime. Therefore this research approach is explorative because case studies facilitate experimentation and cross-sectional research. Selecting two countries provides an opportunity to find out more how localization might function as causal mechanisms to SDG effectiveness via more “complex causality” (Rohlfing, 2012:7; George & Bennett, 2005:9-10, 12). As such the independent variable of this research is SDG effectiveness and the dependent variable is localization. The dependent variable will be operationalised by looking at the extend of involvement of different stakeholders in the process, as well as the tools provided to

26 support them. An analyses is made by looking at status and monitoring reports of implementation, by attending and analysing a diverse range of meetings, as well as by talking to people in the field.

2.3 Unit of Analyses The main units of analysis of this thesis are, according to their respective levels of abstraction: the SDG Regime, Denmark and the Netherlands, the stakeholders. The SDG Regime is a new regime that is based on the SDG Agenda that the international community, the 193 member states of the UN, agreed upon in 2015. This regime is the main empirical subject of this thesis and is introduced in paragraph 1.2 and defined in paragraph 3.1.2. Denmark and the Netherlands are the geographic regions in which the case-study of this thesis is conducted. Both are Kingdoms consisting of multiple autonomous countries (Greenland and Faroe Islands for Denmark & Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten for the Netherlands). This research will however not take into account those autonomous countries and as such only the Western European part of both Kingdoms is taken into consideration. The stakeholders are individuals or groups within either Denmark or the Netherlands and include subnational governments, civil society, private sector and knowledge institutions.

2.4 Qualitative research To answer the research question, qualitative research method were used. In general qualitative research seeks to explore, explain and understand phenomena. The research question of this thesis aims to explore different governance strategies that localize the SDGs, tries to explain why one strategy is better than the other one and tries to understand how the participation of stakeholders can contribute to localization.

2.4.1 Literature and document analyses To find out which government strategy is most effective in implementing the SDG Regime it is necessary to explore how one can measure effectiveness. The goal of the theoretical framework will therefore be to determine how effectiveness can be measured for the SDG Regime. The answer has been found by looking at literature about international regime theory, environmental governance and public policy literature, from which a literature review was made. Once localization was defined as variable for measuring effectiveness, this variable had to be operationalized. This has been done by looking at a wide range of tools that were designed and reports that were drafted to help countries in the localization process of the SDG Agenda. Many of

27 these reports and tools could be found at the website localizingthesdgs.org, which is an initiative from UNDP, UN Habitat and UCLG. Furthermore, trying to answer whether Denmark or the Netherlands most effectively localizes the SDG Regime, requires a comparison between the two countries. Any comparisons between (environmental) regimes and their effectiveness should begin with a compelling characterisation of the relevant players, incentives, and cooperation problems. Such a baseline would provide a starting point for an analysis of equilibrium institutional designs and their effects on state behaviour and, ultimately, quality (Urpelainen, 2012: 341). Additionally, institutional dynamics provide an useful analytical typology of outcomes, and shows how this typology can be applied to actual environmental regimes (Young, 2010). As such a literature study was done to learn more about the institutional structure of both countries, as well as the policies that were drafted to implements the SDGs. The outcome of this study can be found in paragraph 5.2. An important source that was used were the reports both countries wrote for the HLPF in 2017. Information has been supplemented with knowledge that has been collected during meetings and conversations.

2.4.2 Meetings and conversations Employing case studies enables an in-depth research with a rich understanding of case specific developments (Harrisson et al., 2017). Therefore besides document analyses, also other qualitative research methods, namely observation of meetings and conversations with several stakeholders, were used. According to Blackstone (2012: 230) interviews and conversations are useful when the respondents want to provide explanation or describe processes. Rich and detailed information can be obtained from respondents (Bryman, 2008). Because of my internships at the Netherlands Mission to the UN in New York and my internship at C-Change (social enterprise with a mission to trigger and equip actors to make a difference and contribute to the SDGs) I was able to visit conferences and events regarding SDG implementation. Additionally, as many conferences nowadays are streamed online, this gave me the opportunity to watch a high-level discussion about localizing the implementation of the SDGs from the World Bank. A list of conferences and events which I visited and derived data from can be found in Appendix II. Furthermore, I had useful conversations with several stakeholders either in person or via skype. Most meetings Carolien de Bruin (CEO of C-Change) also attended. First of all I spoke with Linda Midgley and Wineke Haagsma from PricewaterhouseCoopers [PWC]. Midgley is senior manager sustainability and responsible governance and did research regarding SDG implementation from businesses. Haagsma is head of corporate responsibility and focuses on the internal organisation of PwC. Secondly, I talked to Sören Landly, from Global Citizen

Denmark, who developed a project regarding environmental awareness raising. Thirdly, I had multiple conversations with Hugo von Meijenfeldt, national SDG coordinator of the Netherlands, at both the HLPF in New York and the SDG Booster Event in Amsterdam. Fourthly I spoke with Jessica Espey, senior adviser at the Sustainable Development Solution Network [SDSN] who directs SDSN’s work on data, monitoring and accountability for the SDGs. Fifthly, I had several conversations with Gerjan Agterhof, who is political adviser at the NGO ‘Woord and Daad’, at both the HLPF and the SDG Impact Summit. Lastly, I attended several skype meetings with UNDP private sector team in Istanbul about community portals and online/offline support for the SDGs.

2.5 Reliability & Validity Bryman (2008) argues that the reliability of a conducted research can be evaluated on the basis of four criteria: objectivity, reliability, internal validity (the ability to redo research) and external validity (to what extent the results of a study can be generalized to other situations), but a complete independent research is impossible. These criteria for scientific methods prove a difficult fit with qualitative research that study singular entities or events. This difficult fit occurs especially when it comes to case-studies of social units such as states like Denmark and the Netherlands. As such qualitative research is harder to verify than quantitative research and does not automatically guarantee reliability and validity (Leung, 2015). Many methodology researchers (e.g. Davies & Dodd, 2002; Lincoln & Guba, 1985 & Stenbacka, 2001) therefore argued for new concepts of validity for social sciences. An example is for example ecological validity. Ecological validity asks the question whether the “social scientific findings are applicable to people’s every day, natural social settings” Cicourel (1982:15). Looking at this criteria, this research makes a relevant contribution. The insights of this thesis might help governments and relevant stakeholders identify how and where exactly they can contribute to effectively implement the SDGs. Also, individuals reading this thesis can become aware of the SDGs and their power to end poverty, fight inequality and stop climate change once everyone works together. Secondly, Davies & Dodd (2002) argue that the terms of reliability and validity in qualitative studies can be replaced by the idea of ‘scientific rigor’. This ‘scientific rigor’ expects that qualitative research is not necessarily reliable and valid in the sense of “replicability of time and across context” (Davies & Dodd, 2002:290). Instead, reliability should be organised based on consistency and care in application of research practices. Therefore documentation is extremely important. As such this chapter explains in detail why a case-study is chosen as well as gives an explanation of the research

29 methods being used. Also important is to be mindful of the partiality and limits of research findings (Davies & Dodds, 2002:290 ).

3. Theoretical Framework This chapter will explain the development of the research field of international regime theory in which four different debates could be identified. The first debate (3.1.2) is concerned with the operationalisation of the concept of international regime. The second debate (3.1.3) examined why international regimes are formed, and why they change. The third debate (3.2.1) considers the causes of variation of regime effectiveness between different regimes. The fourth debate (3.2.2), is the most important debate in this theoretical framework as it is the debate concerning the operationalisation of the concept of regime effectiveness. On the basis of public policy literature, ‘outcome’ is the best variable to measure effectiveness. By translating ‘outcome’ to the SDG Regime (3.2.3) the variable ‘localization’ appears into the debate. As such ‘localization’ can be seen as an important variable for regime effectiveness and is explained in paragraph 3.3.

3.1 Environmental Regimes Whenever a new international agreement or regime is established the discipline of international relations can generate research on the impacts and effectiveness of international cooperation (O'Neil, 2009:104). The effects of international cooperation are a growing concern, especially in the international environmental politics literature. Questions in this field of study concern how well states comply with agreements, what measures they undertake to implement them, and to what extent the agreements or regimes actually resolve the problems they were designed to address. This thesis’ research question invokes the study of the effectiveness of the SDG Regime, and as such theory that sheds light on the development of the scholarly debate of regime effectiveness is required. This field is however a rather new field within international politics. In order to conceptualize regime effectiveness, first it is important to explore the research field of regime theory.

3.1.1 Debates in International Regime Theory

Regime analysis can be divided into four streams: “how regimes are formed”; “how regimes are maintained”; “the consequences of particular regimes”; “and whether or not regimes are effective (Paterson, 2000). Otherwise formulated one can identify four debates (see Figure 3.1). The introduction chapter of this thesis already touched upon the first two debates in which (i) the definition of international regimes was given and (ii) the different school of thoughts that exists were explained. As mentioned in paragraph 1.2 the SDG Regime is merely based upon the constructivists school of thought. A bit more context of this school of thought, including the definition of environmental regimes is given in the next paragraph. The third debate identified in Figure 3.1 tries to explain the variations in effectiveness between different regimes (see Underdal 2002). More recently regime literature focused on a fourth debate, regarding the conceptualisation and operationalisation of regime-effectiveness. It is this debate that is most important for this thesis as it identifies different variables that can measure regime effectiveness. This theoretical framework results in an explanation of the indicator localization as most important variable to measure the effectiveness of the SDG Regime.

Figure 3.1 Debates in international regime theory

Source: Author’s work, based on Seter, 2011:7

3.1.2 What is an environmental regime and why can the SDGs be considered as one? A lot of literature has been written about the establishment of change in international regimes. In general if the principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures of regimes become less coherent, or if actual practice is increasingly inconsistent with principles, norms, rules and procedures, then a regime has weakened and it likely to change (Krasner, 1982: 189). However the discussion of the establishment of change is mainly shaped by three schools of thoughts (liberal institutionalism, neoliberalism & cognitivism) as explained in paragraph 1.2. This theoretical framework will primarily consider the school of cognitivism/constructivism. This stresses ideas, knowledge and learning as explanatory variables of the establishment and change of international regimes (Seter: 2011: 14). In this school of thought the preferences of the actors are not singularly assumed, but can be treated as an empirical question. The particular answer may change over time due to the process of learning in connection with interaction between actors (Haas, 1982: 236). Therefore members of an international regime can gradually evolve a culture that can create a social system that absorbs the traditional political world (Parks & Roberts, 2010: 138). This can be seen for example in the negotiations during the Conference of the Parties [CoP], where the interests and identities of the climate change actors (individuals, sub-state actors, states, and international organisations) interact, and therefore bring forward a greater understanding of climate change policies (Pettenger 2007: 7). The cognitive approach is often used to explain why the content of regime rules change and why they evolve, because cognitive theories can better explain dynamic elements of international regimes, than the other theoretical approaches (Haas 1982: 510). This CoP is part of environmental governance, because it tries to steer the actions of humans, that involve uses of natural resources or impacts on the ecosystem (Young, 2013:10). The objective of governance is to guide human actions in such a way as to promote sustainability and avoid or reduce destructive side effects (Young, 2013:11). Governance systems that are specialised to the treatment of those concerns are known as environmental regimes. These are regimes that manage the environment, and are comprised of assemblages of rights, rules, decision-making procedures and programmatic activities. Also addressing human actions occurring in specific times and places, and occur at all levels of social organisation, both globally (e.g. endangerment of species or climate change) or at a national level (e.g. fishing or pollution policies) (Young, 2013:11).

The typical environmental regime is issue specific, however some provide broad frameworks covering a range of human activities (Young, 2013:11). The SDGs, which are considered worldwide as the most important policy issues for the next 15 years, can be considered as a new environmental regime in international cooperation. This does not mean that the other environmental regimes (e.g.

Climate Change regime) are no longer relevant, it merely involves incoherence among the components of other regimes or inconsistency between existed regimes and related behaviour (Krasner, 1982: 189). The SDG Regime is based upon a vision towards sustainable development for all and is strongly influenced by constructivists theories that influenced our understanding of international environmental cooperation (O’Neill, 2009: 151). By including Goal 13 on Climate Change in the 2030 Agenda, the SDG Regime bridged the long-existing gap between the development agenda and the agenda on climate change (Kosalapova, 2016). Also there has been a shift in governance over the last decades from government-led top down models to network-like arrangements of multiple actors (Hoiberg Olsen et al., 2014: 2). In paragraph 1.2.1, Krasner’s definition of a regime mentioned that norms are a variable of regimes and can be seen as standards of behaviour. By creating the SDG Agenda, the UN offered clear policy targets that are set as norms for shaping government policies. However, the SDG Regime gets its constructivist character because the Agenda 2030 has agreed that participation and deliberation are chief normative functions as contemporary institutions pursue a sustainable development agenda (Hoiberg Olsen et al., 2014: 2), and therefore have been able to influence cooperative outcomes by transmitting shared ideas of causes and responses to problems to government representatives (Haas, 1990). Consequently, in the SDG Regime there is recognition that governance functions such as interest representation, organisational responsibility, and decision- making are shared responsibilities between stakeholders (Hoiberg Olsen et al., 2014: 2); again a constructivist approach.

3.1.3 Why and how are environmental regimes gaining importance? More specific communities (e.g. Inuit population or tribal communities) have become part of the global environmental narrative, because of the extinction of resources (O’Neill, 2009: 68). In the last decades this have become more visible to the world due to developments in technology. As such there is more attention for climate change. People start to realise that there is no planet B and that they need to act in order to make a change. Also O’Neill (2009:68) mentions that charismatic leaders (e.g. Al Gore) shape the course of global environmental governance using particular framing or communication tools, or these individuals have great negotiating abilities. Another argument to explain the gaining importance of environmental regimes in the past years could be the changes in roles and rules for engagement of NGOS in participation in international environmental policymaking. The international community has begun to recognise that effective global action requires meaningful stakeholder involvement in international policymaking and implementation (Wapner, 2000). NGOs involved in environmental governance are highly diverse,

34 including local, regional, national, and international groups with various mission dedicated to environmental protection, sustainable development, poverty alleviation, animal welfare, and other issues (Gemmill & Bamidele-Izu, 2002:3). This diversity is acknowledged in Agenda 21, the sustainable development blueprint adopted at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. As such NGOs can take upon different roles (e.g. Expert advice and analysis, Intellectual competition to governments, Mobilisation of public opinion, Representation of the voiceless or Monitoring). This official status of civil society opened the door to broader interest representation and as such they were able to build the political will for a new approach to development that integrates environmental and social goals (Gemmill & Bamidele-Izu, 2002:9), making environmental regimes more important. Furthermore, with the acknowledging of the importance of other stakeholders besides governments in the contributing to development (as officially documented in the Monterrey agreement (see 1.3.1)), doing good by doing well have more and more become a trend. Not only because Corporate Social Responsibility boosts your image as a company, but also the creation of sustainable solutions is nowadays a business opportunity, thus getting attention. The Business and Sustainable Development Commission (2016) concluded for example that the SDGs have a significant $12 trillion dollar business opportunity. As such investors no longer try to reduce possibly harmful impacts of their investments, but instead seek to derive positive social or environmental results (de Bruin et al., 2017:19). For example Figure 3.2 shows different stages of investing. Whereas in the past most investors only considered the traditional phase, nowadays many are experimenting with either the responsible or sustainable phase.

Figure 3.2 Shift in SDG Investing

Source: de Bruin et al., 2017:19

Above examples show that environmental regimes are thus no longer a top-down agenda enforced by states. While looking at the SDG Regime, we see this agenda also being used as a roadmap for business. The SDG Agenda provides a framework of global needs with 17 winning strategies to win market share (as well as hearts and minds) and provide the basis for developing the necessary linkage between Corporate Responsibility strategy and the organisation’s overall strategy (Friedman, 2017). When these SDGs are becoming an actual part of society, the next question that therefore needs to be asked is how well such regimes function? What are the conditions that need to be satisfied for an regime to be successful? Are there certain factors that can determine the success of an international regime? For example, although most governments nowadays believe that NGO participation is indispensable, some also feel that there are drawbacks of civil society participation, for example that their participation would invariably result in policy distortion (Gemmill & Bamidele- Izu, 2002:9) or that they are not necessarily representative of, or accountable to their particular constituencies (Nichols, 1996). Von Moltke (2000) has pointed out that “effectiveness is a multidimensional concept that requires multiple research strategies”. The next section will therefore not only examine academic insights of regime effectiveness, but will also look beyond the academic field for insights into responding to challenges associated with evaluating effectiveness, which links back to the research question of this thesis.

3.2 Regime Effectiveness The previous paragraph elaborated about the definition of environmental regimes and how and why the SDG Regime can be seen as the newest. It therefore elaborated on the establishment and change of regimes (debate ii). This paragraph will develop an academic insight about the measuring concepts that exist for assessing the degree to which international environmental regimes contribute to environmental problem solving. In other words; it tries to investigate whether a framework can be built so that the effectiveness of the SDG Regime can be measured. However in order to do so, a concept such as regime effectiveness needs to be operationalised before it can be explained.

3.2.1 What is regime effectiveness? The third debate (Figure 3.1) is about the variations in effectiveness between different regimes (Seter, 2011:15). There are however many variables that try to explain regime effectiveness. According to Underdal (2004: 40) these can be identified in three clusters; (i) the nature of the problem, (ii) characteristics of the group of parties, and (iii) properties of the regime itself. Looking at the first cluster, Mitchell (2010:173) argues that international regimes that address direct and visible environmental threats are most likely easier to solve and relatively less

36 expensive (Mitchell 2010: 173). The SDG Regime however does not solely address one problem as it is known for its multiple dimensions of sustainable development. Therefore the nature of the problem addressed in this regime cannot be classified as easy. Underdal (2004:41) argues that some groups of actors are more likely to collaborate together than other groups. One argument is that social capital influences the capacity of collective action (Ostrom, 1995), but also the distribution of power between actors in the regime is important (Underdal, 2002). The SDG Agenda states that: “all countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan” (RES. 70/1, 2015:1). Stakeholders in the UN context were defined while drafting Agenda 21 at the Earth Summit in 1992 and include the following: Women, Children and Youth, Indigenous Peoples, Non-Governmental Organisations, Local Authorities, Workers and Trade Unions, Business and Industry, Scientific and Technological Community, Farmers. It is therefore extremely important to keep in mind the second cluster and explore the characteristics of the group of parties involved in the SDG Regime. The last cluster argues that effectiveness depends on the problem-solving capacity of the regime, which has to do with both the institutional setting and the ability of political engineering to create cooperative solutions (Seter, 2011:16). Some regimes contribute to regime effectiveness through providing procedures, arenas or other facilities that make it possible for the parties of the regime to develop a base of consensus, knowledge and shared beliefs (Underdal, 2004: 41). As such the institutional setting of both Denmark and the Netherlands will be explored in paragraph 5.2. After elaborating on the causes of variation of regime effectiveness between different regimes (debate iii). This thesis' main focus is to investigate whether the SDG Regime is an effective regime (for Denmark and the Netherlands) or not. Therefore, in the next paragraph, the conceptualisation and operationalisation of regime effectiveness (debate iv), also deserves attention.

3.2.2 How can regime effectiveness be measured? The idea of effectiveness implies the idea of international regimes as tools to perform a particular task (Seter, 2011:17). For the SDG Regime this particular task is: “a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity, while seeking to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. The world recognised that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development” (RES. 70/1, 2015:1). Unfortunately the present literature does not offer a unified approach to assess a regime’s effectiveness (Helm & Sprinz, 2000:632). However, when looking at literature about public policy evaluation (e.g. Mohr, 1995) regime effectiveness can be evaluated in terms of their usefulness. This instrumental perspective mostly pays attention to consequences that are meaningful to the purpose

37 assigned to the regime and side effects are only important if they have a direct or indirect influence on this purpose (Seter, 2011:17). Consequently, costs of implementation are not taken into consideration. As such, regime effectiveness is an evaluation of gross achievements instead of net achievements (Underdal, 2004). The question that needs to be asked is ‘What needs to be evaluated?’ and ‘Where can you look for regime effectiveness?’ To do so it is essential to use an indicator which is a reasonably valid measure of regime effectiveness, and at the same time practical in terms of gathering of data (Seter, 2011:17).

In public policy literature there are three potential indicators that can be used: outputs, outcomes and impacts (Mitchell, 2010:148). These indicators reflect the different stages of international regimes and the dependent variable regime effectiveness can be measured at different points of this chain (Underdal, 2004:34) (see Figure 3.3 for the SDG Regime chain). The indicator output refers to rules and regulations that are applied by an international regime and can be measured by regulations and policies that have been adopted at the state level (Mitchel, 2010:148). It is therefore about measures that states take to make such international accords effective within domestic law (Jacobson & Brown Weiss). Usually research where this indicator of regime effectiveness is used, is a case-study of policies performed at the national level, in order to adjust to the new rules. Using this variable for measuring the SDG Regime will however not be that useful as the SDG Agreement is a form of soft law (Von Stein, 2008: 248) and therefore the UN has no capacity or mandate to force states into their desired outcomes. Additionally, Mitchell (2010: 148) argues that even though new policies are relatively easily accessible information, it is often incomplete as a measure of regime effectiveness since there is no evidence of meaningful behavioural change. The second indicator, outcome, could also be defined as implementation. Using this indicator it is possible to evaluate governmental or sub-governmental behaviour (Seter, 2011: 18). The variable outcome is potentially useful for measuring the effectiveness of the SDG Regime as the implementation of the SDG Agenda is currently being executed. The variable impact usually refers to changes in environmental quality. As the SDG Regime is based on sustainable development which requires social, economic and environmental quality, in this case impact will refer to achieved changes in order to ‘contribute to a better world’. It is difficult to measure the effect of a regime on quality, because the process of improvement for especially environmental quality is slow (Mitchell, 2010:148) as it might take years or decades for nature to respond to change in human behaviour (Helm & Sprinz, 2000:632). Although ultimately impact is the best variable to measure effectiveness, this last stage of development lies in the future and for now there is no data available due to a time-lag (Underdal, 2002).

This paragraph has elaborated on the different clusters that can be taken into consideration while defining regime effectiveness. It consequently argued that there are three potential variables that can measure regime effectiveness. Which of the dependent variables is chosen depends the development stage of the regime. While making the SDG Regime chain (Figure 3.3) currently the implementation period of the SDG Agenda has arrived. As such, the variable outcome is most relevant to measure the SDG Regime. The next paragraph will continue building on this outcome variable. Figure 3.3 Potential indicators to measure SDG Regime effectiveness

Regime Regime Social, economic & formation implementation environmental

quality

Impact Output 2000-2015 2015-2030 Outcome >2030 An agreement: Implementation The SDG Agenda period of the SDG Possibly a new was signed Agenda agreement

Source: Author’s work

3.2.3 How can one measure outcome and as such effectiveness of the SDG Regime? According to Young & Levy, implementation in the sustainability domain can be understood as “the process of putting…commitments into practice” (1993:3-4). This assumes a relationship between implementation and compliance. Implementation refers to measures that states take to make international accords effective in their domestic law (Jakobson & Brown Weiss, 1995). Compliance results from a process of assessment of agreements made, and can be defined as the degree of consistency between behaviour, and specified rules. So compliance refers to whether countries in fact adhere to the provisions of the accord and to the implementing measures that they have instituted (Jakobson & Brown Weiss, 1995). Consequently compliance is often seen as a useful proxy for determining effectiveness (Hoiberg Olsen et al., 2014:2). Effectiveness of SDG implementation can then be presented as a measure of the extent to which a policy has been successful in solving the problem it was created to address (Zaelke et al., 2005). As said compliance involves whether countries stick to the provisions of the accord. This can be seen with procedural obligations like reporting, and substantive obligations like targets (Jakobson & Brown Weiss, 1995).The goals of the SDGs are divided into targets. Many targets of the SDG

39 agenda are unfortunately only broadly defined or phrased in non-quantitative terms. In addition, most targets are defined at global level. This, on the one hand is a challenge for the translation of the SDGs to national policy targets, but on the other hand also leaves room to account for national circumstances (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving [PBL], 2016:22). Translating broadly defined SDG targets to the national level thus requires defining a set of national policy targets and so compliance. These policy targets should cover the most important elements of the SDG target in question (Dietz & Hanemaaijer, 2012; Hák et al., 2016). In addition, they should be relevant in the national policy context. So compliance involves assessing the extent to which national governments have followed through on the steps they have taken to implement accords. However, the problems foreseen by the UN and others regarding the implementation of the SDGs are supported by theory and actuality. First of all, top level agendas struggle to connect with on-the-ground needs and actions. This is an acute challenge that limits SDG success. Secondly, the data needed to see how well implementation is going is lacking as information systems fail to surface basic information about ongoing activities or portfolios (Damstra & de Bruin, 2017).The reason that a lack of standardised data is available is because the definition of variables following the SDGs have become a part of international politics (see 1.3.2). Therefore it is difficult for policy makers to draft the right policy for SDG implementation. In other words, even though the outcome indicator (see paragraph 3.2.1) seemed to be most qualified to measure effectiveness, is it still not optimal due to limited data availability. Furthermore, the SDG implementation process only started two years ago (in 2015). Therefore, to get a complete overview of this indicator outcome to measure effectiveness is still extremely difficult.

Although it is hard to measure effectiveness of the SDG Regime this does not mean that one can refrain from trying. Lim & Tsutsi (2012) developed an academic framework that distinguished four environmental institutional factors that can be influential by the implementation of norms international organisations established. Their research was based upon a framework that is, like the SDGs, established by the UN (Global Compact). As such, their framework could potentially be helpful to effectively implement the SDG Regime. The four factors of Lim & Tsutsi’s framework were: 1. Global institutional pressure; the more a country is connected to international society, whether through governmental or nongovernmental linkages, the more likely its government and corporations will participate in global frameworks 2. Local receptivity; The greater the legitimacy of principles in a country and the more rationalised the business environment, the more likely its government and corporations will participate in global frameworks

3. Foreign economic penetration; Cross-national economic relations, exert pressure on governments and corporations in developing countries to participate in global frameworks 4. National economic system; The more liberal a national economic system, the more likely the government and corporations in a country will participate in global CSR frameworks

Since this thesis compares the implementation of the SDG 5 in Denmark and the Netherlands, which are both liberal high income countries and part of the European Union, it is not relevant to use factor 1, 3 or 4 to make a comparison, because 1 & 4 will most likely be the same in those countries and 3 is only relevant for a developing country. Therefore the local receptivity factor is the most relevant factor to use from this framework as the result could be different in Denmark or the Netherlands. Additionally, certain local actors can utilize norms from international organisations to further their own interests nationally. As Cortell & Davis (1996:457) state: ‘”When decision-making authority is decentralised, a policy maker's appropriation of a salient international rule helps to empower her position in the national arena”. Therefore localization can be considered as an interesting variable for regime effectiveness. This could also be deduced from the SDG Agenda itself as it is said that localization means more than only make sure that internationally agreed goals ‘land’ to the local level. Instead, it means making the aspirations of the SDGs become real to communities, households and individuals, to particularly reach the ones who are most left behind (Steiner, 2017). As such, localization provides direct contact on the ground. Additionally, Mitchell (2004: 125) argues that the best way to choose a dependent variable for an analysis of the effectiveness of an international regime is to employ a variable that corresponds to the goals identified in the agreements that form the legal basis for the regime. The next paragraph will give more insights about this localization variable.

3.3 Localization This thesis argues that localization can be an effective variable to measure regime effectiveness. Localizing means: “taking into account subnational contexts in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, from the setting of goals and targets, to determining the means of implementation and using indicators to measure and monitor progress” (Localizing the SDGs, 2018). Therefore exchanges between global, national and local facets is necessary. As such localizing is a process to empower all local stakeholders, aimed at making sustainable development more responsive, and therefore, relevant to local needs and aspirations (Localizing the SDGs, 2018). The SDGs can only be reached if local actors thoroughly participate, not only in the implementation, but also in the agenda-setting and monitoring.

3.3.1 What role do stakeholders play in localization? As country contexts differ, so will national implementation of the SDGs. It goes without saying that states are the biggest actors in global environmental governance (Conca, 2005: 181), however, they are not always the most neutral ecological institutions. As the SDG Regime is based upon a combination of environmental, economic and social development, the role of sub-global and non- public institutions will also be important in the localization process of the SDG agenda. This role of different stakeholders in the localization process has however not yet been sufficiently researched, and should receive more attention (Hoiberg Olsen, 2014:8). This view refers back to the definition of governance initially summarised in paragraph 2.1, where the interactions between multiple levels of governance (joint governance), and especially the role of non-state actors in the implementation of the SDGs decide whether the goals gather interest and action among people and communities on the ground (Hoiberg Olsen et al., 2014:8).

According to Nuesiri (2016:3) "local level representative democratic authorities are the building blocks to establishing democratic governance in any nation for it is the space where the citizenry can become proficient in articulating needs and demanding accountability from their elected representatives." There is space for private sector & NGOs as part of the decision making governance. They are however not elected, so cannot be held accountable. They are involved in symbolic politics instead of substantive representation. Sub-national governments might therefore be one of the most important actors in SDG implementation as they have a democratic capacity. International organisations (e.g. UN agencies) can therefore benefit from working together with local government authorities as it would bring them closer to the local people and would make their activities more transparent and increase downward accountability to the local level (Nuesiri, 2016:7). Although local government authorities might be the most suitable actor for accountability, it should be noted that they should not be the only actor involved, as governance systems stand little chance of improving situations where social, economic and political contexts beyond the institution itself hinder successful implementation (Gulbrandsen, 2005). Further governance is joined by other key variables such as finance and technology in enabling implementation. Governance is hence one of several factors that can be instrumental in strengthening implementation of sustainable development policies (Hoiberg Olsen et al., 2014:2). As such, research should also be focused on the role of different stakeholders for the implementation of the SDGs at national and local levels, because interactions between multiple levels of governance, and especially the role of non-state actors in the implementation decide whether the goals remain political and continue to represent

42 vested interests, or whether they come equipped with mechanisms for participation that can get the attention among people and communities on the ground (Hoiberg Olsen et al., 2014:8). For example NGOs and other civil society groups are not only stakeholders in governance, but also a driving force behind greater international cooperation through the active mobilisation of public support for international agreements. Enabling the constructive participation of civil society in global environmental governance is thus one of the most important tasks for policymakers concerned with the effectiveness of global governance (Gemmill, Ivanova, & Chee, 2002). Furthermore, the private sector is an important stakeholder to consider while localizing the SDGs, because private sector growth is widely acknowledged to be an essential component in the alleviation of poverty (the ultimate goal) as a means of providing more and different economic opportunities in any given society (Newton Cain, 2014). The private sector can bring both skills in delivery and new approaches to finance the SDGs. Private financial flows have already become the dominant source of external development finance for MICs and over 30 per cent of LDCs, making Foreign Direct Investments [FDI] larger than ODA (Kharas, 2014). As effective development cooperation is an instrumental part of the SDG Agenda the important contribution of business to sustainability should be recognised (GPEDC, 2014). Additionally, knowledge institutions occupy an unique position within society and therefore also play a crucial role in the localisation process of the SDGs. Universities are a powerful driver of local innovation, economic development and societal wellbeing (Kestin et al., 2017:7). As mentioned multiple times before, the SDG agenda covers interconnected challenges, and the unique functions and expertise of universities are critical for overcoming all of these (Kestin et al., 2017:8). Universities have a neutral position within society and therefore can make cross-sectoral dialogues and partnerships possible. Besides, they have a key role in educating about the SDGs, as well as in advocating for the importance of the SDGs (Kestin et al., 2017:8). Therefore universities have the power to create current and future SDG implementers.

3.3.2 How can the SDG Regime effectively be localized? When looking at the implementation of the MDGs a couple evidence-based solutions can be taken away in order to effectively localize the SDGs. To realize change five drivers are key (Steiner, 2017). The first driver is sensitisation and engagement of local actors. Good governance processes need to be inclusive and participatory and therefore in order for people to meaningfully engage, they need to know about the SDG Agenda. Local actors as civil society, private sector and elected local councils need to be engaged and be part of implementation. Secondly, accountability mechanisms are important. Transparent and more inclusive institutions are required as well as strong commitments

43 to dismiss all forms of corruptions all the way to the local level (Steiner, 2017). The third driver is participatory planning and service delivery. The importance of inclusive planning and monitoring processes particularly at the local level should be underlined. Therefore the international community agreed that progress towards the SDGs need to be drawn upon the actions of local governments and urge participation from all actors in society (Steiner. 2017). Fourthly, local economic development is required, because the SDGs will not be reached unless the communities on the ground see concrete dividends. To conclude, the fifth driver is the importance of partnerships and the commitment to collective action. To put these drivers into practice the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments [GT-LRG], UN Habitat and UNDP put together a roadmap for localizing the SDGs aimed at local and regional governments and their associations to implement and monitor the SDGs as well as to influence national policy-making to create a good environment for action at local and regional level (GT-LRG et al., 2016:3). They additionally designed a toolbox to facilitate an articulated set of tools to support local stakeholders and their networks, under the leadership of local, regional and national governments (Localizing the SDGs, 2018). Their created roadmap consists of four parts: (i) awareness-raising, (ii) advocacy, (iii) implementation and (iv) monitoring. First of all, awareness raising is critical in order to increase engagement of citizens and bring together all sectors of society. Through campaigns and educational activities using conventional and social media, national and local governments can empower citizens to participate in achievement of SDGs (LOGIN, 2017:8). Awareness-raising is not only about letting citizens know about the existence of the SDGs. It is also about empowering them to participate in the achievement of the SDGs in their daily lives (GT-LRG et al., 2016:9). Therefore, local governments should include SDGs in their own policy frameworks to make it relevant locally. Secondly, advocacy activities should focus on developing a national consensus with participation of local governments on SDGs. As such advocacy should focus on creating an environment that promotes decentralisation, in which multi-level and multi-stakeholder partnerships are key (LOGIN, 2017:8). Thirdly, besides awareness-raising and advocacy work, the implementation process should be started. This can be done in a number of ways. Firstly, it is smart to conduct an assessment to establish priority SDG targets based on local contexts, needs and available resources. Secondly, engage in cooperative governance to establish shared priorities. Thirdly, align local and regional plans with the SDGs and make a synergy between local and regional plans with the national strategy. Fourthly, mobilize local resources and fifthly build capacities for effective and responsive leadership. Then, promote ownership and co-responsibility for the implementation of strategic projects and lastly participate in development cooperation and peer-to-peer learning (GT-LRG et al., 2016:25).

The fourth part from the roadmap to localize the SDGs is about monitoring. Monitoring processes require development of a set of indicators specific to the local context that is also gathered at local level (LOGIN, 2017:8). At national level, follow-up should take subnational data into account in the review of the evolution and concrete results of national plans. Also it is important that local and regional governments and stakeholders are enabled participation and are recognised in the review of national plans (GT-LRG et al., 2016:37).

In this paragraph the concept of localization was explained in which was emphasised that the involvement of stakeholders is crucial for the SDG Regime to be effective. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to localize the SDGs. Instead, the options are a blend of implementing and monitoring the goals at the local level by subnational actors, governments, civil society, businesses and knowledge institutions.

3.4 Conclusion The theoretical framework identified the SDG Regime as a new regime in international regime theory. By looking at public policy literature localization was identified as variable for SDG Regime effectiveness. In public policy literature three variables for effectiveness are identified: output, outcome, impact. Which variable is chosen depends on the development stage of a regime. For the SDG Regime, currently the implementation period has started, which relates to the outcome variable. Outcome can be translated to the variable localization as explained in paragraph 3.2.3. The next chapter will explain more about the relevance of localization while specifically looking at SDG 5 – gender equality and women empowerment.

4. Localization of SDG 5 - gender equality & women empowerment

This chapter gives example what can be done to achieve SDG 5. It also clarifies the relevance of doing so by describing why it matters, as well as giving more insights in international progress regarding the different targets of this goal. Additionally, this chapter touches upon the difficulties that exist for monitoring progress due to a missing standardised reporting framework.

4.1 Why does SDG 5 localization matters? Mahmoud Mohieldin, Senior Vice President of the World Bank Group, said the following at a session about SDG localization from the World Bank at the 12th of October 2017:

“Localization is not a way to escape from globalization. It’s in my understanding not an isolated approach of development and it is not just inward looking. However, we’re bringing the SDGs back to the grassroots. Translating actions to the local level.” - Mahmoud Mohieldin, 2017 -

As such localization matters for the SDGs, because success depends on each country being responsible for their own economic and social development in a way that reflects their internal diversity (Patole, 2017:1). Local governments can act as a model for gender equality and the empowerment of women through non-discriminatory service provision to citizens and fair employment practices (UCLG, 2015: 7). They have this role as they are on the frontline of identifying and tackling violence and other harmful practices against women. Local governments can for example maintain safe public spaces through urban planning policies. Furthermore they have to act, together with NGOs, in providing service to women who are affected by violence. Another important task local governments can give priority to is getting more women into elected office. This empowers women, both as a goal in its own right, and because local politics is often the first step to regional and national office (UCLG, 2015:7). By creating female leaders gender stereotypes can be challenged which can set an example to the youth. Lastly, in

46 developing countries, regional governments or municipalities can tackle barriers to women’s equal access to land control and ownership (UCLG, 2015:7). Also other actors like universities and businesses can make SDG 5 matter. They can for example implement workplace gender equity strategies and work towards the gender pay gap. Universities can include policies that improve the representation of women in university leadership positions and senior academic roles (Kestin et al., 2017:24) whereas companies can increase women in management positions. Studies have proved that Fortune 500 companies with a higher percentage of women board directors outperform those with a lower percentage (PwC, 2017a:27). Additionally women in developing countries could be around $9 trillion better off if their pay and access to paid work were equal to that of men (ActionAid, 2015). Also a report by McKinsey (2015) found that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 by advancing women’s equality and $28 trillion would be added by that date if women were to play an identical role to men in the labour markets. A way of promoting equality could be to implement both paternity and maternity policies, provide childcare or promote workplace flexibility (Kestin et al., 2017:24). Above example show that involving multiple stakeholders in localization of SDGs 5 matters. The next question that pops op is how is we can see if those stakeholders are effective and as such make progress? To do so monitoring is necessary.

4.2 How can the SDGs be monitored? As described in paragraph. 1.3.2 the monitoring progress of the SDGs is challenging and there are many difficulties present. The 231 indicators that were agreed upon cannot all be quantified and as such SDG progress is hard to measure. For example there are indicators regarding assessment of legislation or policies, for example indicator 5.1.1 (see Appendix II). The answer to these questions can be ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Hence the question does not regard factual matters (Danish government, 2017:83). Furthermore, it was hard to reach consensus about the indicators in the first place due to political interest. During the 48th session of the Statistical Commission from 7-10 March 2017, the aim was to agree upon a resolution that would adopt the indicator framework for the SDGs. This was however much harder than expected. In fact, a year before (2016) the Commission already failed to adopt this indicator framework. Usually the National Statistical Offices [NSOs] of all countries will come to an agreement in this Commission without interference of diplomats. For most western countries this is extremely important, because of the independence of the NSOs. In the case of this resolution, the diplomats could interfere, since the resolution also had to be adopted by the ECOSOC and the GA due to the mandate of the SDG Agenda itself (70/1, para. 75). Therefore there was the risk that even

47 though the Statistical Commission had agreed on the indicator framework, several countries would politically re-open the framework in a later stage and change the indicators. As such the language in the original resolution had to be discussed extensively and in 2016 no agreement was reached. In 2017 after long negotiations (Author’s notes) the resolution was finally adopted. Still even at the official adoption off the framework by the Member States (diplomats) in the ECOSOC at the 6th of June 2017 multiple countries, like for example Cuba, the United States and Russia had doubts about specific indicators (Author’s notes, 2017). The agreed indicator framework is a good first step to start monitoring the SDGs, however what we can learn from the theoretical framework is that in order to effectively implement the SDGs, the targets and indicators need to be adopted to the local context. Effective monitoring will require the interaction between all stakeholders for data collection. This is called disaggregation, and is used to decompose responsibilities across and between levels of government, civil society, the private sector and knowledge institutions, to understand which actors and in what combination they will implement the SDG Regime (Patole, 2017:3). Some criticise the work of the UN Statistical Commission on indicators and argue that their list of indicators fails to distinguish between indicators that are valuable for national and state governments and indicators that are valuable for other stakeholders (LOGIN, 2017:12). There are voices that even argue that separate sets of indicators should be developed to measure progress at a local or stakeholder level. Alternative indicators are therefore being developed.

First of all, knowledge institution SDSN, associated with Colombia University in New York, came up with additional, unofficial, indicators and issued an index in 2016 to help countries to take stock of where they stood in fulfilling the SDGs and to help countries prioritise for early action (SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017:1). In 2017 they presented an updated version and filled a major gap in SDGs discussions about countries’ global responsibilities and international spillover-effects (conversation Jessica Espey, 2017). While looking at SDG 5, SDSN identified 5 indicators (see table 4.1) that could be measured globally to indicate progress. The first and fourth indicator are also agreed upon by the UN Statistical Commission. The SDG Index aggregates available data on all SDGs into a composite index to provide countries with a quick assessment of how they are performing relative to their peers (SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017:32). The purpose of the index is not to compare countries with a complete different development status, but instead allow countries to benchmark themselves using a single holistic measure that encompasses all SDGs and treats each goal equally (SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017:32). Although, the index shows that rich countries, particularly from Northern Europe perform best, the SDG Dashboards of those countries also show a “red” score in at

48 least one SDG and “orange” or “yellow” on many others. As such, even though a country is on top of the index it still means that they require further action. Table 4.1 SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung indicators

SDG 5 indicators Year Source data

1. Estimated demand for contraception that is unmet (% women married or in 2000-2015 UNDESA union, ages 15-49) 2. Ratio of female to male mean years of schooling of population age 25 and 2000-2014 ILO above 3. Ration of female to male labour force participation rate 2014 UN Women 4. Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (%) 2015-2016 IPU 5. Gender wage gap (Total, % male median wage) 2011-2015 OECD

Source: Author’s work, based on SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017:51

Secondly, for the private sector the indicators agreed upon by the UN are not all relevant. Therefore in order for businesses to engage with the SDGs a translation to their needs seems to be necessary. PricewaterhouseCoopers [PwC] tried together with UN Global Compact and GRI to design a business guide to engage with the SDGs. They were engaged in this process with a team of four consultants, however they are not entirely happy with the outcome (conversation PwC, 2017). The goal was to create common indicators for businesses, but the outcome was merely a collection of different existing indicators. This had to do with the multiple stakeholder positions in the process. Not everyone had the intention to align the indicators with practical national implementation. As such a global agenda does not automatically fit the national context. At the moment PwC is still talking with other stakeholders (e.g. World Benchmarking Alliance) to continue their work, but it does not have their priority at the moment (conversation PwC, 2017). There is no point in endlessly trying to develop such internationally agreed sets, because in practice tools or frameworks like this are often not developed by the international community, because it requires too much time and funding and it is often impossible to reach consensus politically (conversation PwC, 2017). Usually, it is developed by one company or one country and is then at a later stage implemented by other countries, because of proven effectiveness. A note should be made that international regimes therefore might not be that effective. Instead of developing indicator frameworks it is better to focus your time and energy on actions where you can make a difference (conversation PwC, 2017). PwC advises their clients on how to conduct sustainable business and the biggest example to do so is to practice what you preach. Therefore PwC created an integrated dashboard that can help to deal with the SDGs (conversation PwC 2017). According to Wineke Haagsma the world we live in today is about “business to society”. SDG framing as such is not that important, but it should be about the purpose. “What will we do differently tomorrow from today?“. This is a more practical approach instead of merely focusing on data.

Although there is a lot of engagement from businesses it is difficult for them to decide how to report on them. In a recent study from PwC (2017b) 62% of companies analysed felt that the SDGs were important enough to mention in their reporting, but 25% mentioned the SDGs without setting any priorities. Resulting that 63% of companies analysed do not have meaningful engagement with the goals. Therefore it is important to get your priorities straight as it is impossible to make a difference on each SDG. It should be about creating impact. To identify and map priorities the company could for example analyse what is important to their stakeholders. Also it is useful to find out what is going on in the region of the location of the company, so they might be able to contribute to a better society. Lastly, focus on SDGs in the field of your expertise. Haagsma said that PwC internally focuses on four SDGs (8, 10, 12, 16). However, she mentions that they indirectly also focus on SDG 5. A lot of SDGs have overlap and by choosing SDG 10 about reducing inequalities, they adopted a strategy that also helps to empower women. When looking at monitoring, once a company defined their priorities, companies need measureable, outcome-focused objectives that lead to improved focus and performance (PwC, 2017b:25). These indicators of performance need to be more outcome focused in which the impact of a company’s activities on the economy, environment and on society is given. At the moment, most businesses are monitoring only at a qualitative level, meaning that they merely describe their ambition (PwC, 2017:25). Still, there are companies that use a bit more quantitative data and the most commonly used indicators by businesses for SDG 5 are: - The % of female employees within the total workforce - The % of female employees within the manager layer - The % of female board members (both executive board and supervisory board)

This paragraph showed that there are several ways to monitor SDGs progress. Recognition that a wide range of stakeholders will be critical to the success of the SDGs also necessitates a follow-up and review framework that encompasses indicators for a wide range of actors. Therefore, while adopting the SDG Agenda the UNGA decided that the global monitor framework should have multiple components. First of all there is progress of individual countries, which member states can (voluntarily) present under the High Level Political Forum in New York. Additionally a review of thematic progress is made. The next paragraph will consider this thematic progress of SDG 5.

4.3 What can be said about international progress of SDG 5? At the High Level Political Forum [HLPF] in July 2017, a progress report was prepared by the SG in cooperation with the UN system. Although hard data is not yet available in this report, as the implementation period of the SDGs only started two years ago, the report (E/2017/66) provides an analyses of trend data per target (see box 1.1). The information below can be derived from this thematic review of SDG 5. For target 5.1 some progress has been made to end discrimination against women and girls in laws, policies and practices. However, there is no comprehensive overview of data on legal frameworks in place to promote, enforce and monitor equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex. Discriminatory constitutional and legislative provisions are still in place in many countries, including in family, divorce and personal laws, penal codes, nationality laws, and laws relating to inheritance and ownership and control over land and other resources. Regarding target 5.2 on the basis of data from 2005 to 2016 for 87 countries, 19 per cent of women between 15 and 49 years of age said they had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in the 12 months prior to the survey. Women who have experienced intimate partner violence are 50 per cent more likely to acquire HIV than women who have not. Data is lacking about violence against women and girls with disabilities, ethnic minorities and women migrant workers. A positive note can be made about target 5.3 as the prevalence of child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation and cutting [FGM/C] has been gradually declining over the past three decades. Still, around 1 in 4 women between 20 and 24 years of age reported that they were married before they turned 18. Luckily marriage of girls under 15 years declined from 11 per cent in 1990 to 8 per cent. At least 200 million girls have undergone FGM/C in the 30 countries with representative prevalence data. This is still about one third of the girls between 15 and 19 years old. While focusing on target 5.4, on average women spend three times as much of their time on unpaid care work. This disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work, together with paid labour, means women and girls work longer hours and have less time for other activities. Regarding target 5.5 globally women’s participation of national parliaments reached 23.4 per cent in 2017. This suggests that stronger political commitment and more ambitious measures and quotas are needed to boost women’s political participation and empowerment. Also, women remain underrepresented in managerial positions and in only 44 per cent of the countries with available data the share of women grew. In addition women represent less than 30 per cent of the world’s researchers, and even lower percentages at higher decision-making levels. There is a lack of supportive legislation regarding target 5.6 about women’s access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights [SRHR] which has an impact in women’s ability to

51 make their own decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use, HIV prevention and health care. It is particularly difficult to enable access for marginalised groups, such as migrants and indigenous women. Only 50 percent of women, aged 15-49 years make their own decisions according to data available from 45 countries. Data about target 5.a regarding women’s access to economic resources, including land, property and financial services, remains limited and not internationally comparable. There is some progress made on target 5.b as the spread of new technologies, particularly mobile phones and internet, has increased opportunities to communicate, and access information and services. However, women in developing countries face challenges as in LDCs en MICs women are 21 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone than men. In 2016, women’s internet use was 12.2 per cent lower than men’s, with a significantly higher gap in LDCs (30.9 per cent). The global gender digital divide has unfortunately also widened by 1.2 per cent since 2013, which has an impact on the way in which goods and services are created. Women are not adequately represented as stakeholders, co-creators, and beneficiaries of technology-based interventions and often lack access to technology, digital skills, and media and information literacy. Because of all the challenges that are still available there is specific need for target 5.c to significantly increase investments for gender equality. Of the 80 countries with available data, only 47 per cent have systems in place to track and make public allocations for gender equality.

While looking at the progress of all the targets, it can be concluded that a lot of work still needs to be done, both on data collection and creating actual policies that contribute to these targets. UN- Women summarised the data in an info-graphic called Spotlight on SDG 5 (see Appendix V) to make it more understandable and create awareness. Also politically SDG 5 got the necessary attention. During the negotiation of the Ministerial Declaration of the HLPF in July 2017 there was a lot of discussion about references to gender equality and women and girls empowerment as well as the issue of full enjoyment of human rights by women and girls in the text (Author’s notes). Several Member States had difficulties with these references in the Ministerial Declaration, even though it was already agreed text of the SDG Agenda itself. SDG 5 therefore almost caused the silence procedure being broken (Author’s notes). The below caption from the statement of the European Union, at the 19th of July 2017, after adaptation of the Ministerial Declaration, shows the political sensitive areas of SDG 5. Consequently, it will be challenging to effectively implement SDG 5 internationally in its entire form in the future due to diverse political interest.

“The 2030 Agenda has already identified and acknowledged that 5.3, 5.6 and 5.A are integral to the overall development goals and investments in these areas are among the most effective in development. We are not only doing a disservice to women and girls by leaving out target 5.6 on sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, but also to families and communities. We find it incomprehensible that many delegations opposed using this declaration to address crucial issues such as the elimination of child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation, and the promotion of women’s economic rights, that are an integral part of the 2030 Agenda.” - Ado Lohmus, Deputy Minister for Environment of Estonia, speaking on behalf of the EU, 2017 -

4.4 Conclusion Above paragraph showed that acting on SDG 5 is extremely important as there is still a lot of progress needed to achieve this goal. It also shows that it will be hard to adopt international agreed measures, due to political sensitivities. Despite the sensitivities, a lot can still be done locally to improve gender equality for example by implementing both paternity and maternity policies, or promoting workplace flexibility. This are all efforts that are way less sensitive then SRHR and FGM/C. Furthermore, this chapter identified the challenges present for monitoring. The next chapter will consider these monitoring practices while looking at the SDG implementation strategies of Denmark and the Netherlands.

5. Case-study: The localization of SDG 5 in Denmark and the Netherlands

This chapter examines whether localization has taken place in Denmark and the Netherlands and what can be concluded in terms of effectiveness regarding the government’s strategy in both countries. The chapter starts by examining the position of Denmark and the Netherlands in the world. Both countries score rather high, but while looking at SDG 5, progress can still be made as not every target is achieved yet. By looking at initiatives that are executed by stakeholders in both countries, this chapter tries to conclude which strategy has been most effective. As such the chapter concludes by giving recommendations how to localize the SDG Regime.

5.1 What can be said about the position of Denmark and the Netherlands in the world? Studies conducted by OECD and SDSN have compared countries’ starting positions regarding compliance with the SDGs. In general could be concluded that both Denmark and the Netherlands have a good starting position for the SDGs. At the 2017 SDSN Index, Denmark positions 2th and the Netherlands has the 13th position (SDSN &Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017). This means that from a global perspective, they are relatively close to achieving the SDG targets. However, still both countries have challenges regarding a number of indicators. Also, data collection remains a challenge. Statistics Netherlands could for example only identify data for 35% of the 231 indicators (CBS, 2016). Figure 5.1 & 5.2 show how far Denmark and the Netherlands have progressed based on a study conducted by the OECD. The study was based on 127 available indicators allowing coverage of 94 of the 169 SDG targets. The longer the bars the shorter the distance is to reaching a specific target. Targets are clustered by goals. While looking at SDG 5, data is only available for 5 of the 8 targets. Specific information about the data can be found in Appendix V. Additionally Figure 5.3 & 5.4 show the Danish and Dutch scores regarding the SDSN indicators for SDG 5 as introduced in paragraph 4.2. It shows that even though both countries are scoring rather high in the international rankings, progress can still be made. The next paragraph will describe how both countries try to achieve progress.

Figure 5.1 Denmark distance to the SDGs

Figure 5.3 Denmark SDG 5 score

Source: SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017:87

Source: OECD, 2017:36

Figure 5.2 Netherlands distance to the SDGs

Figure 5.4 Netherlands SDG 5 score

Source: SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017:119

Source: OECD, 2017:48

5.2 What can be said about the institutional structure and the government’s strategy of Denmark and the Netherlands to implement the SDGs? As described in paragraph 3.2.1 effective localization requires stakeholders to be involved. Stakeholders may be empowered by existing institutional structures, since they can demand involvement in multi-stakeholder initiatives (Jackson et al., 2016: 7). Therefore it is relevant to examine the institutional setting of Denmark and the Netherlands and examine how this contributes to the government’s strategy regarding SDG implementation.

5.2.1 Denmark Denmark is a sovereign state in the form of a constitutional monarchy, with a representative parliamentary system, as is first written in the Constitution of Demark from 1889 (Denmark, 2018). Although officially the Monarch retains executive power, in practice the duties of the Monarch are strictly representative and ceremonial. Instead, executive power is exercised by the Cabinet of Denmark, chaired by the Prime Minister (Lars Løkke Rasmussen since June 2015). The political system of Denmark is a multi-party structure, where several parties are represented in the Parliament. Danish governments are usually minority administrations, governing with the aid of one or more supporting parties (Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2018). This means that Danish politics are characterised by inter-party compromising. At the moment the Danish Cabinet consists of Venstre (liberal party), Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People’s Party.

The Danish government is committed to an ambitious follow-up regarding the SDGs. Denmark’s public sector is substantially decentralised and the municipalities account for 70 per cent of public consumption (Danish Government, 2017:7). As such central and local governments of Denmark agreed that cooperation and strong partnerships across society are needed to achieve the SDGs and integrate sustainable development in policy making (Danish Government, 2017:7). In June 2016 the government decided to formulate an Action Plan for the follow-up and implementation of the SDGs with the aim to establish a framework for multi-stakeholder engagement and partnerships both nationally and internationally. The drafting for this plan involved all ministries and was coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance (Danish Government, 2017:15). Additionally, input from civil society, the private sector and academia was asked. The action plan was approved by the government on 22 March 2017. In the Action Plan the government prioritised 37 targets, which integrate and cut across several SDGs (Danish Government, 2017:18). Each target has one or two national indicators, which are in large part measurable and quantifiable. In table 5.1 the targets and indicators that the Danish

56 government established regarding SDG 5 are presented. The targets also have overlaps with other SDGs.

Table 5.1 Danish government targets regarding SDG 5 Target National indicators SDGs

More refugees in employment. Employment rate for refugees and rejoined 4,5,8 family members. Promoting women and men’s equal access to participation in Women and men’s employment rate. 5,8 the labour market. Strengthen gender equality in education between girls and boys, - Girls’ and boys’ GDP in public school. 4,5,8 including by reducing differences in wellbeing and grades. - Result of national survey on well-being. Furthering support for adults and children exposed to violence in Follow-up on the effort by the national unit 5,16 close relationships. against violence in close relationships. Sustain Denmark’s role as an active international advocate for A notable and visible effort in the EU and 3,4,5,10, gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights. UN. 16

Source: Author’s work, based on Danish Government, 2017: 19-25

While looking at responsibilities within the government, the Ministry of Finance is responsible for coordinating the national implementation of the SDGs (Danish Government, 2017:25). Efforts are mainly coordinated through an inter-ministerial SDG work group and bilaterally between the Ministry of Finance and the line ministries. Interesting to mention is that in the beginning the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was chair of the group until the adoption of the Action Plan. This is relevant, because it reflects a shift in government strategy that has taken place. It shows that Denmark believes that sustainable development needs to be integrated into domestic policy and the daily working of the government. At a side-event during the HLPF 2017, launching the SDSN Index report hosted by the German Mission, the Danish Minister of Finance, Kristian Jensen, said the following:

“The SDGs are not for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; they are domestic policies.” – Kristian Jensen, 2017 –

A remarkable fact is that Jensen was Minister of Foreign Affairs while the Action Plan was being designed, so he in fact transferred the agenda along with himself to the Ministry of Finance. Jensen mentioned that an important reason for the SDGs to transfer to the Ministry of Finance is that this Ministry has the ability to decide about necessary funding, as well as making sure that all policies are aligned with one another (Author’s notes, 2017). The policy expertise is however still located in the responsible line ministries (Danish Government, 2017:25).

It should be noted that the Action Plan does not constitute the entirety of the government’s contribution to the SDGs. It is a prioritised document that highlights some of the essential

57 contributions, mainly focusing on domestic priorities (Danish Government, 2017:18). Still, the 2030 Agenda also constitute the platform for Danish development cooperation and humanitarian action and shapes the government’s global engagement. As such the SDGs play an important role in the government’s strategy for foreign and security policy which integrates the SDGs across various policies such as the inclusion in trade and investment, development policy and technological development (Danish Government, 2017:27). The strategy of the Danish government regarding development cooperation and humanitarian action is reflected in the document “The World 2030” (Danish Government, 2017:17). In this strategy the Danish efforts are prioritised based on areas of experiences and competences. Denmark considers SDG 16 regarding peace, justice and institutions and SDG 17 regarding partnerships to be the foundation for Denmark’s development engagement (Danish government, 2017:28). Additionally, SDG 5 (gender equality), 7 (sustainable energy) and 13 (climate) were selected to make a contribution. About SDG 5, the Danish Minister for Development Cooperation, Ulla Tørnæs, said the following at a World Bank meeting about localization at the 12th of October 2017:

Gender equality is a high priority for me in the development portfolio”. I strongly believe that we will not achieve the SDGs at a global level if we do not address SDG 5. It is mostly important because of the Human Rights perspective. Millions of women around the word have less right then men and can’ t use their full potential in contribution to development in different societies. It makes sense to give them the same opportunities. From surveys we know that we can increase the global GDP with up to 25% if women get the same rights as men. Each year a girl attend school, she will increase her income by 10%. So in human crisis situations girls need access to school.” - Ulla Tørnæs, 2017-

Regarding SDG 5 the Danish government therefore places SRHR at the centre of their work, and they only work for societies that do not discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation or any other grounds (Danish Government, 2017:29).

The Danish government believes in partnerships between different stakeholders and therefore is committed to include players across society in the implementation of the SDG Agenda. For example, they are planning to launch an SDG Fund in 2018, to realise public-private partnerships between the government and institutional investors and leveraged private investments (Danish Government, 2017:33). The importance of stakeholders is also reflected in the monitoring process of the SDGs in Denmark in which contributions from civil society, private sector, municipalities, youth organisations

58 and academic institutions are taken into consideration (Danish Government, 2017:34). In order to promote and ensure exchange of ideas and discuss possible course of action, the Ministry of Finance will conduct formal meetings with relevant stakeholders (e.g. after the presentation of the annual progress report of the Danish government) (Danish Government, 2017:35).

5.2.2 Netherlands Dutch politics takes place within the framework of a parliamentary reprehensive democracy, a constitutional monarchy and a decentralised unitary state (Bekke & Meer, 2000). Dutch elections are based on proportional representation and as such allows small parties to be represented in the parliament. Also, a government coalition therefore consists of multiple parties. On the 26th of October 2017 a new government was installed consisting of four parties that agreed on a centre-right policy programme. The four parties are the conservative-liberal VVD, the progressive D66 and two Christian parties, CDA (relatively moderate) and the Christian Union (conservative). The Prime Minister is Mark Rutte (VVD). The Netherlands is characterised by its decentralised governing style, with many responsibilities for the local governments: provinces, regional water authorities, and municipalities. The decision-making in the Netherlands is often categorised as ‘poldermodel’, which means “an extensive consensus between government, employers and trade unions” (Van Dyk, 2006: 409), that leads to extensive public-private cooperation.

The Dutch government has the ambition to realise all the 17 SDGs in 2030. To make this happen, they started the implementation process in 2016 by conducting a baseline measurement of national policy (mapping). A summary was made of existing and announced government policy of each of the 169 sub-goals to be achieved. Additionally, they made an analyses based on the established 230 indicators in light of ‘Monitor Duurzaam Nederland’ (Tweede Kamer, 2016:2). About the existing policies regarding SDG 5 the following was said (Dutch Government, 2016:33-38): Target 5.1: In jurisdiction gender equality is achieved, however in practice there are still unequal positions on the labour market, resulting in violence and discrimination of women and unequal payment. The Netherlands Institution for Human Rights assesses complaints about unequal treatments and then mentions points of attention for the Dutch government. They for example indicated that health care is not sufficiently focused on women. The central government approach to promote gender equality firstly aims to remove disadvantages of women and girls. Secondly, they try to keep in mind gender in general policy objectives. Internationally women’s right is one of the four spearheads of the aid, trade and investment policy of the Dutch government. Their policy to improve the position of women has four objectives.

First of all, it tries to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls. Secondly, they aim to provide a fair share of women in political and powerful positions. Thirdly, a focus on the economic empowerment and independence of women is made. Lastly, women should have a role in conflict resolutions and peace building. The Netherlands tries to achieve these goals through financial support for women's rights organisations through various grants (e.g. Funding Leadership & Opportunities for Women [FLOW] fund). Also, they try to ensure that gender is taken into account in the different policy priorities that women benefit from Dutch investments in trade and development cooperation. Lastly, Dutch diplomats promote women’s rights in their work. Target 5.2: The Guidelines for Emancipation Policy 2013-2016, could be used for this target, for example the goal to increase the (labour)participation of women. Internationally, the Netherlands contributes to the strengthening of policy frameworks, legislation and implementation mechanisms for preventing and ending violence against women and girls. They do this for example by supporting CSOs as well as contributing financially to the UN Women Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence Against Women. he Netherlands is also working with various organisations to combat genital mutilation girls, sexual violence against women, domestic violence and child marriages. Target 5.3: A national network of key figures is established that help predominantly Somalian communities to make FGM discussible. Internationally, the Dutch government has a SRHR and HIV/AIDS policy in which they try to combat child and forced marriages and FGM together with NGOs, UNICEF and UNFPA. Target 5.4: The Dutch Emancipation Policy 2013-2016 describes the policy measures that needs to be taken in order to reach this target. Internationally the FLOW grant contributes to this target. Target 5.5: The Dutch government has a general employment policy, but the municipalities are responsible for the local labour market policy. The Dutch have a high rate of women participating in paid work (70% in 2016), but at the same time Dutch women relatively often work part-time (Dutch Government, 2016:35). Resulting in only half of the women being economically independent. As such the national government has an Economic Independence program to raise awareness about the importance of economic independence and to encourage women to work more hours. In addition, the Netherlands has a specific policy aimed at the flow of women to decision-making positions. Internationally, the Netherlands has many programs that contribute to this target. An example is the National Action Plan Women, Peace and Security. The objective of this plan is to encourage structural change of norms, laws and institutions, so that women and men have equal opportunities and rights and can fully participate in the prevention of conflicts, conflict resolution, peacebuilding and reconstruction.

Target 5.6: Jurisdiction in the Netherlands establishes SRHR, however in practice there are a couple of vulnerable groups that require extra attention and to whom access is not guaranteed. Internationally, SRHR is a priority of the Dutch development cooperation policy and as such they try to establish internationally agreed laws that advance the access to SRHR. Target 5.a: The Netherlands supports businesses to identify and realise business cases that lead to the strengthening of the position of women by for example urging them to increase the employment for women, improve working conditions, support female entrepreneurship or respond to wishes of female consumers. Target 5.b: Nationally a policy theme ‘Women in coding’ is being developed. Internationally, the FLOW Fund focuses on programs that supports women to effectively use the press to promote and defend women’s right. Target 5.c: Nationally a law is present (Algemene wet gelijke behandeling). Internationally, the FLOW Fund tries to contribute to the establishing of laws to promote gender equality.

Beside this basement measure of the already existing governance policies, a number of external reports were made which the Dutch government also took into consideration while deciding their SDG implementation strategy. First of all, the Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency concludes that for most of the environment-related SDG sub-goals national policy goals already exist, although they are often focused on 2020 (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, 2016). The OECD (2016) thinks the starting position of the Netherlands on the basis of half of the sub-goals is "very good" and the SDG Index (see 4.2) puts the Netherlands in the eight place (in 2016). In all external reports, Dutch strengths are health, fair work, economic growth and drinking water & sanitation. Weaknesses are the participation of women in leadership positions (SDG 5!) and the share of renewable energy and biodiversity (Tweede Kamer, 2016:2). On the basis of the basement measure and the external reports, policy gaps regarding the SDGs could be identified. One might expect the government then to formulate additional national (sub)goals/policies to start the implementation process. However, unlike Denmark, the Dutch government did not draft an Action Plan regarding SDG implementation. Instead, the Dutch government focuses on a pragmatic implementation of the SDGs, both in content and process. While looking at content, there is no policy drafted to be implemented from top to bottom. This can be explained, because many competences are held by municipalities in the Netherlands (Blom, 2017:28). As such in terms of process an integrated approach is needed, in which partnerships are extremely important. As a result, a national SDG implementation program has little added value (Tweede Kamer, 2016:3). Hugo Von Meijenfeldt, National SDG Coordinator, said the following about the government strategy at the SDG Booster event (2017):

“The Dutch government has assumed a facilitation role and is not going to make laws that should be respected.” - Hugo von Meijenfeldt, 2017 -

The government thinks it is more important to know about progress that is being made to reach the goals, instead of drafting a complete new strategy for the SDGs (Tweede Kamer, 2016:3). The new government that was installed in October 2017 continues this line of thinking. In the coalition agreement the term ‘SDG’ is only mentioned once (in the chapter about development cooperation). However in terms of content, most SDGs are reflected at different ministries according to Von Meijenfeldt (SDG Booster event, 2017). Unfortunately, the SDGs were not used as a roadmap while designing the coalition agreement, despite a call from many CSOs (e.g. Partos & de Groene Zaak) and the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition [DSGC] for doing so, and as such there is no extra attention in the coalition agreement regarding SDG 5 (except for the extension of the paternity leave). This is a shame according to Von Meijenfeldt, since the Dutch have a relatively low score regarding women participation in top-level functions as well as pay gaps (SDG Booster event, 2017). The political responsibilities regarding the Dutch SDG implementation have been assigned to all ministries concerned. Whenever coordination is required, the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation (Sigrid Kaag since October 2017) is responsible. Additionally, an SDG network of focal points with representatives from each ministry and the Vereniging voor Nederlandse Gemeente [VNG] (Association of Netherlands Municipalities) has been established and meets regularly (Kingdom of the Netherlands, 2017:8). It is chaired by a special appointed coordinator for SDG implementation (Hugo von Meijenfeldt). The VNG aims at steering municipalities to incorporate the SDGs in their policies. According to Von Meijenfeldt: “The municipalities and the water authorities are very enthusiastic about the SDGs, even more than the ministries’ (Blom, 2017:28). Due to the ‘poldering’ tradition, it is custom in the Netherlands to make deals and as such other stakeholders, like civil society, knowledge institutions, private sector and youth are also involved in SDG implementation and monitoring (Kingdom of the Netherlands, 2017:17). As such, a National Report will be drawn up annually in consultation with the stakeholders.

5.2.3 Conclusion This paragraph outlined the strategies of both Denmark and the Netherlands regarding SDG implementation. It can be concluded that in both countries participation and partnerships with different stakeholders is key. However, both countries have a different approach in doing so. Whereas the Danish government adopted a National Action Plan in which an official framework for

62 multi-stakeholder engagement and partnerships was established, the Dutch did not adopt a national plan and instead appointed an SDG network of focal points, led by a national coordinator. Another difference between the two countries is the Minister that is ultimately politically responsible. In Denmark this is the Minister of Finance and his Ministry has the ability to decide upon necessary funding, as well as establishing policy coherence. In the Netherlands, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation is responsible, which could potentially have a worrying side-effect in which the SDGs are predominantly seen as an agenda for development cooperation, because the Minister has no influence in the policies of other ministries, making policy coherence more difficult. To avoid this problem several CSOs proposed to install an ‘SDG-test’ in which policies could be checked upon positive, neutral or negative effects regarding sustainability (Tweede Kamer, 2017:6). Lilianne Ploumen (former Dutch Minster of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation) rejected the proposal, because it would not have an added value in Dutch policy making, since all new policy proposals already have to pass an existing coherence test (Tweede Kamer, 2017:9). The next paragraph will review what stakeholders in Denmark and the Netherlands do to help implement the SDGs and therefore tries to examine if both countries’ government strategies contribute to localization.

5.3 What can be said about localization of the SDGs in Denmark and the Netherlands? Effective implementation of the SDG Regime requires localization. As argued in paragraph 3.3 for localization to be successful active involvement of stakeholders is needed. This paragraph will touch upon initiates or action oriented projects from different stakeholders within Denmark and the Netherlands in contributing to the SDGs. It has to be said that the examples given below are by no means exhaustive. It merely gives an indication of the many projects and initiatives taking place. If one would be interested in more examples a good start would be to read the Voluntary National Reviews [VNRs] from both countries that were written for the HLPF in New York in 2017. For both countries all stakeholder groups have their own chapter explaining more about their contributions and priorities.

5.3.1 Denmark As indicated in the previous paragraph the participation of stakeholders is important to the Danish government and they needed to be involved in the design of the national Action Plan. As such a conference was organised to shed light on the possibilities and challenges. The CEO of Novozymes, a global biotechnology company with its headquarters in Copenhagen, presented the opening speech

63 to show also the commitment of the private sector. The company wants to have 30% females in Senior Management positions by 2020 and as such contributes to the realisation of target 5.5. Additionally they want to ensure diversity within the company and established a recruitment policy in which this is core. Lastly, they are member of the Gender Diversity Roundtable in Denmark that brings together top leaders from 15 Danish businesses that want to bring more women into leadership roles (Novozymes, 2016). A topic that was also discussed at the conference was how to raise public awareness, a strategy that can be used for effective localization as discussed in paragraph 3.3.2. A 2017 survey shows that 12 per cent of the Danish population has heard of the SDGs, which despite an increase from 10 per cent in 2015, leaves room for improvement (Danish Government, 2017:17). The government itself tries to do its part to increase awareness of the SDGs were possible, but also several stakeholders in Denmark came up with initiatives. A first example is World’s Best News that publishes news about progress and solutions to world’s problems to the Danish population (Action Campaign, 2017). Classical journalism usually focuses on conflicts and problems in society, resulting in many people being pessimistic about poverty reduction and the possibility of achieving the SDGs (Zimmermann, 2017). World’s Best News tries to create hope by showing that many positive results regarding the SDGs are achieved. Secondly, the project ‘Climate Planet’, founded by Sören Lundby, is an example. In a joint effort between Aarhus community, local companies, WWF and Global Citizen community a large globe was developed for education purposes as awareness starts with education (conversation Lundby, 2017). At first, the globe (see figure 5.5) was only designed to raise climate attention and encourage its visitors to rethink their attitudes towards sustainability and environmental protection. However as Lundby indicated, the SDG Agenda is a much more inclusive approach to sustainability so he (Global Citizen community) decided to include an SDG ring around the globe. Although, ‘Climate Planet’ was first initiated and exhibited in Aarhus, Denmark, the ‘project’ is planning to be on display in 24 European cities (already been in Bonn during COP23), most likely also Utrecht in the Netherlands (conversation Lundby, 2017).

Figuur 5.5 Climate Planet

Source: Clean Energy Wire, 2017 64

Another tool to localize (see paragraph 3.3.2) is monitoring. As ‘Climate Planet’ will be moving from place to place many people will be met that (want to) contribute to the SDGs, therefore it is important to map all the initiatives (conversation Lundby, 2017). This can result in establishing possible new partnerships that can help effectiveness of the SDG Regime. Monitoring is however hard according to Lundby, because all the people and organisations will have a lot of data available, but there is no alignment in taxonomies (conversation, 2017). Although monitoring is difficult, knowledge institutions like the Danish Institute for Human Rights [DIHR] made an attempt. They tried to link human rights monitoring with the SDGs, which is highly relevant for SDG 5 as equality is a basic human right. They managed to make recommendations for targets 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.a & 5.c (DIHR, 2015). The final example of localization to mention for Denmark relates to the advocacy tool of the roadmap (see paragraph 3.3.2). Civil society reviewed Denmark’s efforts to implement the SDGs and came-up with 83 policy recommendations. Recommendations regarding SDG 5 are written by the The Danish Family Planning Association [DFPA] and Danner. They suggest to criminise coersive control, which involves repeated threats of violence, isolation, or having your judgment or actions suppressed (ActionAid, 2017:14). Also they suggest SRHR to be at the centre of Danish development cooperation (ActionAid, 2017:15).

5.3.2 Netherlands In line with the ‘poldering’ tradition in which the Dutch find solutions and form accords with different parties, an SDG Charter agreement was signed in the Netherlands in which CSOs, knowledge institutions and businesses recognised the importance of the SDG Agenda. The Charter’s mission is to connect for impact and as such convene diverse actors and catalyse joint action to create synergies towards the SDGs (SDG Charter, 2017). They facilitate action both online and offline. Offline the charter organises events where people can update an inspire each other. Usually these events are organised with other networks, so that the Charter movement can be broadened (SDG Charter, 2017). An example from such an event is the SDG Impact Summit that was organised together with DSGC, Royal Tropical Institute [KIT] and Worlconnectors on the 25th of September 2017. At this event breakout session tried to determine which challenges and opportunities are present per SDG and what can be done to solve this. For SDG 5 the organisations Equileap and Lyxor led the session. In this session was mentioned that many organiisations did report on SDG 5, but most of them only looked at the percentage of women on the board. Equileap therefore developed 19 indicators that have a broader focus, like equal pay, work-life balance, mother and paternity leave, leadership and policies that promote gender equality and introduced a score card to test gender equality (SDG Impact Summit, 2017). Lyxor explained that this data can be used to make new

65 investments that include a gender view by using a track fund that shows which companies score best on gender equality (SDG Impact Summit, 2017). Furthermore, the SDG House, located in the KIT, was launched at the Impact Summit. This house hosts a diverse range of forward-thinking entrepreneurs, NGOs and organisations all working towards achieving the SDGs, through partnerships, co-creation and the exchange of ideas (SDG Impact Summit, 2017). Besides offline facilitation the SDG Charter also contributes online, by using a tool called the SDG Gateway which is an online community portal where people can search for partners, showcase initiatives and link reports. The technology behind the SDG Gateway is called Impact Pro(filer) and is developed by C-Change. This social enterprise designed this technology with the aim to capture and amplify existing networks and community portals and to connect the needs of people worldwide (internship C-Change, 2017) .C-Change is working with a lot of partners (e.g. UNDP private sector team Istanbul, UNSG office New York, UNDP country teams, Rockefeller Philanthropy) to try to aggregate data and align taxonomies worldwide.

Other interesting initiatives in the Netherlands are mainly related to awareness raising and advocacy (see localization roadmap in 3.3.2). Some experts (e.g. Von Meijenfeldt) believe that if politicians are aware of the SDGs, the more they are inclined to prioritise its implementation (Blom, 2017:40). Therefore an initiative with this purpose was launched by civil society organisations. Dutch members of parliament agreed to 'adopt' one or more SDG(s) by connecting them to their political work over a time period of six months. Gerjan Agterhof (working for the NGO ‘Woord en Daad’) mentioned that the purpose of the campaign is to enhance political commitment in the Netherlands for making the SDGs a reality (SDG Impact Summit, 2017). A large group of civil society organisations provide the members of parliament with concrete suggestions (advocacy) for political debates and indicate key opportunities for action. Additionally they create a media buzz to make the efforts of the members of parliament visible (awareness). SDG 5 is adopted by 5 members of parliament: Kirsten van den Hul (PvdA), Achraf Bouali (D66), Isabelle Diks (GroenLinks), Lilianne Ploumen (PvdA), Anne Kuik (CDA). Another awareness raising campaign is called ‘Global Goals Gemeente Campagne’, initiated by the VNG to stimulate municipalities to adopt the SDGs. The VNG created a ‘Menu of Inspiration’, which provides ideas for actions. Through a ‘Time Capsule’, which is traveling around the country, mayors and their populations, schools, municipal councils and other stakeholders, express a wish for 2030 and thus engage in a dialogue on what the municipality needs to do to achieve a sustainable future (GT-LRG et al., 2016:11). Additionally, the campaign advocates and negotiates towards the national ministries (GT-LRG et al., 2016:11). Another initiative to create awareness organised in the Netherlands is the Wedo2030 Festival, organised at the 8th of November by JCI Netherlands. This festival had the aim to inspire

66 multiple stakeholders to act on the SDGs. Amongst others, former SG Kofi Annan gave a speech and encouraged participants to start acting in line with the SDG framework (Wedo2030 Festival, 2017). Additionally a lunch was organised that encouraged companies to make commitments (see Appendix VI). Lastly a pavilion was created in which participants could get more information about the SDGs (see figure 5.6).

Figure 5.6 SDG pavilion at Wedo2030 Festival

Source: Author’s own A final initiative worth mentioning is a research that PwC published in November 2017 that showed what progress has been made in the Netherlands regarding SDG implementation. PwC made recommendations to increase the Impact of the SDGs and as such you could say that they are using the advocacy tool of the localization roadmap (see 3.3.2). PwC concluded that different stakeholders have different needs. First of all, the business world embraces the SDGs, but monitoring needs to be more concrete (PwC, 2017c:16). Secondly, the decentralized governments (provinces, regional water authorities, municipalities) tried to link their functions to the SDGs, but they are waiting for a roadmap/Action Plan from the national government to start drafting policies. The national government does however not wants to be in the driver’s seat (PwC, 2017c:18-19). Thirdly, civil society in general contribute to the SDGs, but this is often not visible. They often do not feel the need to report along the entire SDG framework, since most of them only focus on one SDG (PwC, 2017c:20). Finally, social enterprise want to create impact regarding the SDGs as they see this as a business opportunity. Unfortunately, customer demand is often lacking (PwC, 2017c:23-25). This lack of customer demand indicates a lack of public awareness of the SDGs. During a breakout-session of the SDG Booster Event at PwC, multiple participants from the small and medium enterprises confirmed this. During the same breakout session remarks were being made that the SDGs should be integrated to the Dutch education curriculum as well as the necessity of a national awareness campaign regarding the SDGs as has been done for the MDGs (SDG Booster event). The national SDG coordinator responded:

“Investments in a national campaign have not yet been made, because it does not make sense if there is no concrete action plan. In theory you could invest in a campaign for awareness of the term SDGs, however it is much more important to tell citizens what they themselves can do.” - Hugo von Meijenfeldt, 2017-

5.3.3 Conclusion This paragraph showed that in both Denmark and the Netherlands many initiatives by a diverse range of stakeholders are set up to contribute to the SDGs. As such, in both countries localization of the SDGs has started. Most activities are focused on awareness raising and advocacy. The next step should be actual implementation and monitoring of progress. Especially this monitoring process is a challenge. In both Denmark and the Netherlands many commitments for action are made, but it is much harder to keep track. According to Carolien de Bruin, technology is needed to contribute to effective monitoring (internship C-Change, 2017). It all starts by active mapping what you are already doing. Best is however to capture this information in a standardised way from the bottom-up. Around the world many conversations are nowadays held between funders, companies, people on the ground, knowledge institutions and UN agencies, about what this standardised reporting should look like (internship C-Change, 2017). As already mentioned in paragraph 4.2 an international agreement is often hard to find and usually best practices will become the trend. As such in terms of monitoring it is better to at least start with collecting data that could possibly be relevant. In the future, when technology advances, dots can be connected (conversation de Bruin, 2017). The SDG Gateway in the Netherlands is a good example of doing so.

5.4 What can be said about the effectiveness of the governance strategies of Denmark and the Netherlands? It is hard to say whether the governance strategy of Denmark or the Netherlands is most effective regarding localization of the SDGs, because the implementation period just started and hard data is not always available yet, due to the earlier described monitoring challenges. Still, an effort can be made and a few things can be said. First of all, the Dutch position on the SDSN list declined from the 8th to the 13th position between 2016 and 2017, whereas the Danish position remains the same. The Dutch decline was mainly was due to a change in measurement that added spillover indicators. Spillover indicators involve for example numbers about CO2 emissions to third world countries because of trade as well as biodiversity impacts (SDSN & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2017:51-55). As such, it can be argued that the

68 policy coherence between different ministries within the Netherlands is less advanced then in Denmark. Furthermore, while looking specifically at data for SDG 5, it can be concluded that Denmark is also doing slightly better than the Netherlands. If we look at the seats that are held by women in the national parliament in the Netherlands there is no positive progress. It even declined from 36.9% in 2016 to 35.6% in 2017, whereas in Denmark the number remained stable (37.4%) (Eurostat, 2018). Also, the gender employment gap is bigger in the Netherlands compared to Denmark. In the Netherlands the gap was 11.1% in 2015, whereas in Denmark the gap was only 7.6%. In Denmark the gap even became smaller to 6.7% in 2016, whereas in the Netherlands the gap remained the same (11%). With caution it can therefore be concluded that the Danish government strategy, in which a national Action Plan was adopted is more effective for the realization of SDG 5. This conclusion should be considered with caution, since for many SDG 5 targets a data gaps exists. Still, the Dutch government could learn from the Danish strategy to formulate a national Action Plan. At the moment the Dutch government should avoid that its current partnerships model functions as an excuse of not making an action plans themselves. Firstly, many indicators still need to be developed and secondly no concrete policy targets have been adopted yet. Partnerships are key and stakeholder roles should not be undermined, but as concluded in PwC’s (2017c) research the community asks for a bit of guidance. In fact, it is a pity that new government coalition agreement did not touch upon the SDGs, since this would have been an excellent chance to set an example for other stakeholder groups within the country.

5.5 What recommendations can be made to effectively localize the SDG Regime? There are some prerequisites necessary to channel change in behaviour. First, the stakeholders must know what is to be done. Second, the stakeholders must be motivated or have the incentive to do it. Third, the stakeholders must have the ability and other resources necessary. These are referred to as knowledge, motivation, and resources (Mohr 1995: 31). As such a first requirement for effective governance to localize the SDGs requires the necessity to divide tasks and determine different roles (e.g. financing, advisory, technical assistance) between stakeholders. First of all, fulfilling the SDGs requires a big level of financing. According to De Bruin it is crucial that businesses take the lead in mobilising this capital (internship C-Change). However, they are often restricted from making investments by regulations and fiduciary duty. Governments should therefore leverage private capital for SDG investments, for example by mechanisms such as blended finance (Danish government, 2017:53). An example is the Danish Climate Investment Fund. Additionally, governments should assist businesses, in particular Small and Medium Enterprises

[SMEs] into translating the SDGs to the local context, because they find it hard to establish added value of the SDGs by themselves as said by multiple representatives from SMEs during the SDG Booster event (2017). Therefore besides a facilitation role, it is also recommended that national governments take the lead in creating roadmaps for SDG implementation in which they keep the national context in mind. By creating such a roadmap or national Action Plan, they can contribute to the development of a feedback mechanisms. By creating a feedback mechanism good behaviour can be stimulated. As such, an effective system for monitoring requires a collection of standardised data, so that the data can be used to compare stakeholders. This creates incentives for stakeholders to do good, because in general people do not want to be last in line. However, although monitoring would benefit from standardised data, SDG implementation should not be a ‘tick of the box exercise’. The ultimate goal of stakeholders engaging in the SDGs implementation should be to create social value for the society. It is therefore not necessary to develop a complete new reporting framework, but instead use best practices. Also, it is important to prioritise as explained in paragraph 4.2, since acting on all SDGs might be impossible. Written all the above, in short. effective localization of the SDG Regime requires: 1. Identification (mapping) 2. Expectations (national Action Plan) 3. Obligations (feedback mechanism & monitoring tool)

6. Conclusion and Reflection

The ultimate goal of this research was to answer the research question: Which governance strategy most effectively localizes the Sustainable Development Goal Regime and how is this reflected in the participation of stakeholders such as private sector, civil society, knowledge institutions, and subnational governments?

This research question was based on the assumption that localization is an important variable to measure regime effectiveness. In the theoretical framework a literature study was conducted to support this hypothesis. First, support was found to identify the SDG Agenda as a new regime in international regime theory, because the SDGs bridged a long-existing gap between the development agenda and the agenda on climate change. Additionally, the SDG Regime recognises that governance functions such as interest representation, organisational responsibility, and decision-making are shared responsibilities between stakeholders. Support for the variable localization as determinant factor in SDG regime effectiveness was found in public policy literature (Mitchell, 2010) that identified three variables for effectiveness: output, outcome & impact. By analysing the stage of the SDG Regime, outcome suited best. Outcome can be seen as a synonym of implementation and Lim & Tsutsi (2012) developed an academic framework that distinguished four environmental institutional factors that can be influential by the implementation of norms. The ‘local receptivity’ best suited the SDG Regime and as such localization is seen as determinant variable to measure SDG regime effectiveness. Effective localization requires the involvement of stakeholders and a blend of strategies could be used to do so (e.g. awareness raising, advocacy, implementation and monitoring). Especially monitoring of progress is currently still challenging and many difficulties are present, because not for all targets relevant indicators are identified and many indicators cannot yet be quantified. While looking at the case-study that examined the Danish and Dutch strategy regarding SDG localization, this struggle with monitoring is confirmed. Many stakeholders across the world (e.g. SDSN, DIHR, PwC) conduct efforts to develop relevant indicators and collect and align the data, however this is still an area that requires much more research.

When knowledge and technology advances, dots can hopefully be connected in the future. Most important is that standardized reporting frameworks are being developed so that data can effectively be compared. This not necessarily needs to be done by the international community, because in practice tools or frameworks like this are often developed by individual actors and at a later stage implemented internationally, because of proven effectiveness. As such the basis of a good reporting framework could be to look at best practices. Because effective monitoring is still a research field that needs to be explored it is difficult to conclude whether localization is the most determinant factor of SDG regime effectiveness. What can be said is that localization contributes to SDG implementation, because in both Denmark and the Netherlands stakeholders are considered as partners and involved into the decision making process and both countries score rather successful internationally. On the basis of this thesis, the best governance strategy to adopt to most effectively localize the SDG Regime, is to formally adopt a national strategy by the government, that was crafted by a diverse range of stakeholders, like was done in Denmark. As such an official framework for multi- stakeholder engagement and partnerships can be established which means that obligations are officially established. Additionally, it is best to place political responsibility at the Ministry of Finance instead of at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because the SDG Agenda is predominantly a national agenda and as such decision can be made about necessary funding as well as policy coherence. In the Netherlands the SDGs are less aligned with other policies as the spill over scores from the SDSN index showed. Whether or not this is the ultimate best governance strategy cannot be concluded on the basis of this research, because in other countries different strategies can be adopted. In Germany and Colombia the Ministry of General Affairs is for example responsible for SDG implementation, so it would be worth identifying those structures as well.

When looking at the quality of the study performed a few shortcomings can be identified. First of all, the researcher worked in the Netherlands and has a Dutch nationality. As such it was easier to access data about the Netherlands compared to Denmark, because the researcher could attend local events. As a result, the researcher therefore had a better understanding of the initiatives taking place within the Netherlands. For future research, additional interview could be conducted with the aim to collect more local views on for example the quality of the Danish national Action Plan. Furthermore, a deeper analyses regarding specific targets from SDG 5 could have been executed, which could have resulted in more specific recommendations. Although the researcher focused on SDG 5, a lot of information that was collected was more about generalities related to the

SDGs. Future research can as such try to identify specific stakeholders working on SDG 5 and could interview them about their experiences.

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Appendix

I. The Sustainable Development Goals

II. Official SDG 5 Targets & Indicators

III. List of meetings and conversations

Conferences and events Date Title Organised by Location 7-10 March 48th session UN Statistical Commission ECOSOC, United UN Headquarters, 2017 Nations New York 18 April 2017 High-Level SDG Financing Lab President of the UN Headquarters, GA, Peter Thomson New York 22-25 May 2nd Financing for Development Forum ECOSOC, United UN Headquarters, 2017 Nations New York 10-19 July High Level Political Forum 2017 ECOSOC, United UN Headquarters, 2017 Including: Nations New York - Negotiation Ministerial Declaration - Side-event: Localizing the SDGs: local and regional governments actions for poverty eradication and prosperity – UCLG (12 July) - Voluntary National Review Netherlands (17 July) - High-level roundtable on Teenage Pregnancies – Rutgers + Women Deliver (SRHR related) (18 July) - Voluntary National Review Denmark (19 July) - Side-event: The launch of SDSN’s 2017 SDG Index at the German Mission (19 July) 25 Sept 2017 SDG Impact Summit SDG Charter, DSGC, Koninklijk Instituut KIT, World voor de Tropen, connectors Amsterdam 8 Nov 2017 WeDo 2030 Festival JCI Muziektheater ’t IJ, Amsterdam 12 Oct 2017 Session: Localizing the Implementation of the World Bank online streaming – SDGs January 2018 27 Nov 2017 SDG Booster Event PwC PwC Amsterdam, Westgate II

Conversations Date Name Organisation Location 10-19 July + Gerjan Agterhof Woord en Daad HLPF + SDG Impact 25 Sept 2017 Political adviser Summit

25 Oct 2017 Sören Landly Global Citizen Skype Climate planet Denmark 8 Nov 2017 Jessica Espey SDSN Skype Senior adviser data implementation SDGs 20 Nov 2017 Linda Midgley + Wineke Haagsma PwC PwC Amsterdam, Senior manager sustainability + head Westgate I corporate responsibility 10-19 July + Hugo von Meijenfeldt Ministry of Foreign HLPF + SDG 27 Nov 2017 National SDG coordinator Affairs Netherlands Booster event multiple Private Sector Team UNDP Istanbul Skype between Oct- Dec 2017 multiple Carolien de Bruin C-Change Impact Hub, between Sep- CEO & Founder Amsterdam Dec 2017

IV. Spotlight on SDG 5 – UN Women

V. OECD Data SDG 5

VI. Commitment Cards JCI