Realisation of the SDGs
in Countries Affected by Conflict and Fragility
and the Role of the New Deal
DISCUSSION DOCUMENT
prepared by the Agenda 2030-New Deal Working Group
New Deal Implementation Working Group, 1-2 June, Nairobi
As the global community moves to implement the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
the value of the New Deal as a key global framework for effective realisation of sustainable peace
and development in countries affected by conflict and fragility must be brought to bear. With a
growing demand for guidance, this paper explores how the New Deal can be effectively engaged to
support implementation of the 2030 Agenda in such settings. In particular, the New Deal offers a
means to tackle root causes of conflict and fragility that undermine development, creating trusted
partnerships at national and global level through agreed principles, and catalysing country-driven
processes that build resilience and lay foundations for sustainable development.
1.0
The New Deal and the world’s new development framework
On 25 September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development, including a set of Sustainable Development Goals (the
SDGs) that aim to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development. The Agenda seeks to
ensure that no one is left behind – and to reach the furthest behind first.1 The new goals are
universal in their application, and far broader in vision and intent than their predecessors, the
Millennium Development Goals (the MDGs). Recognising the indivisibility of peace and
sustainable development, peace is recognised as one of five cross-cutting priorities, with a
dedicated SDG, Goal 16, focused on promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice
and accountable institutions.
Specific challenges in countries affected by conflict and fragility, and the New Deal
While the ambition set by the 2030 Agenda is to eradicate extreme poverty from the globe,
empirical evidence shows that extreme poverty will increasingly be concentrated in countries
affected by fragility and conflict,2 pointing to the need to confront these twin challenges directly.
Countries affected by conflict and fragility often face specific contextual challenges, notably
limited or lack of trust between key stakeholders, and weak or failed institutions and political
systems. The New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States was born out of awareness of these
realities, and a deep recognition of the need for states affected by conflict and fragility, their
societies and international partners to work together through agreed principles to achieve
integrated goals of peace, resilience and development.
The New Deal seeks to address the challenges posed by conflict and fragility through the use of
an set of principles, starting with agreement to work first towards country owned and country
led Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals (PSGs) – a foundation for achieving broader
development goals.3 Through the PSGs and other core principles of TRUST and FOCUS
(discussed below), the New Deal fosters inclusive political dialogue build trusts within and
between its core constituencies and other stakeholders, including the private sector and the
humanitarian community. Through country level and global processes, the New Deal is forging
Agenda 2030 Declaration preamble, para 4.
OECD (2015) States of Fragility 2015: Meeting Post-2015 Ambitions Paris: OECD, p 9. Also
3 The PSGs comprise: Inclusive Politics, Security, Justice, Economic Foundations and Revenue & Services
1
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agreements, establishing new norms and creating new practices that aim to bring more
collectively owned development results.
New Deal principles and processes underway offer valued pathways to support the effective
realisation of the SDG agenda in contexts affected by conflict and fragility. They also strongly
support a key goal of Agenda 2030 around global engagement and partnership towards
implementing the agenda as a whole – Goal 17.
The New Deal mandate was renewed for another 5 years on 5 April 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden,
at the 5th Ministerial meeting of the International Dialogue for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding.
The Stockholm Declaration committed to implementing the 2030 Agenda using New Deal
Principles, taking into consideration the specific context of countries in fragile situations.
Similar commitments were made by g7+ member countries in the Kabul Communique. This was
developed during the 4th g7+ Ministerial meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan, which took place just
prior, 23-24 March 2016. A 2016 independent review also underscored these calls for action.
2.0
Working towards the SDGs in conflict-affected and fragile states
The 2030 Agenda does not prescribe how countries should work towards meeting the SDGs;
countries themselves decide how to integrate the 2030 Agenda into national planning
processes. Few countries are expected to give full attention to meeting all 17 goals and 169
targets however. Every country will need to prioritise. Indeed, the 2030 Agenda notes that while
the goals and targets are global in nature and universally applicable, they must take into
account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respect national
policies and priorities.
Fragile and conflict affected states, having perhaps the most limited capacities and resources
and undoubtedly greater political challenges that are a results of conflict and fragility, will need
to be more selective in their prioritisation than most, and be particularly responsive to the
contextual dynamics at play. The need for cultivating processes that builds national ownership,
including awareness, transparency and buy-in over difficult decisions and at times painful
trade-offs, is of particular importance. Such decision-making involves going beyond technical
approaches to address the often political obstacles that stand in the way of development –
which is a key premise of the New Deal, and is acknowledged in the 2030 Agenda.
New Deal Principles
PSGs: In the New Deal, signatories agreed to use the Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals
(PSGs), as an important foundation to enable progress towards any development framework
(national and/or global) and to guide their work in fragile and conflict-affected states.
‘FOCUS’ (an acronym of five elements) suggests key instruments that will facilitate inclusive,
country-led and country-owned transitions out of fragility: Fragility assessments, One Visionone plan; Country compact; Use of the PSGs to frame monitoring; and Support for inclusive and
participatory political dialogue.
‘TRUST’ (also an acronym of five elements) underlines a set of principles meant to support
effective management of resources and to build mutual trust and strong partnerships:
enhancing Transparency; Risk sharing, Use (and strengthen country systems), Strengthen
capacities and Timely (and predictable) aid.
The Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals (PSGs) that have been integral to the New Deal in
framing a set of core issues to be addressed through the development strategies, policies and
practices of all stakeholders. g7+ countries have together agreed that the New Deal PSGs
represent top development priorities – necessary foundations for successful development. The
PSGs should also, therefore, be used to frame the prioritization of SDG goals and targets and
their alignment with national planning processes. This should be informed by New Deal
processes, including fragility assessments and inclusive consultation – see below.
FOCUS instruments should be used and strengthened for SDG implementation as a powerful
means for inclusive political and strategic decision-making around selection and sequencing of
priorities. In addition to bearing in mind how the PSGs can be used, making decisions about SDG
priorities and their implementation should be informed by Fragility Assessments – assessments
that are uniquely country driven, developed and owned, with strong societal participation and
support by international partners. This will uphold the commitments towards ensuring
development addresses the root causes and drivers of conflict and fragility, but also that
capitalises on the drivers of resilience – towards ensuring that development processes
ultimately serve to foster sustained peace in these countries. The compacts, one-vision one –
plan (national development plans) are intended to be interlinked and underpinned by this
fragility analysis. Country leadership, with inclusive engagement of society – notably organised
civil society, women and youth groups, the private sector, and individuals – should continue to
shape and implement country priorities that all international actors work through towards
supporting the country’s development.
TRUST principles are the foundations for effective interventions and for long-term
sustainability, and must be leveraged to drive progress towards the SDGs and to guide political
reflection and discussion. At the heart of this set of principles lies the need for aid that is
transparent, timely and predictable, and risk-sharing between donors and governments –
witnessed by a willingness for donors to work through country systems to contribute to the
development of institutional capacities. While the New Deal has advanced normative thinking in
this area, changed behaviour has not been sufficiently achieved. The TRUST principles should
continue to be used and strengthened by donors and recipients to guide peacebuilding and
development in countries affected by conflict and fragility.
Meeting the SDGs in conflict-affected and fragile settings: The case of Goal 16
SDG 16 aims to “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide
access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all level.”
Working towards these universal ambitions will require taking different actions in different
settings. In a post-conflict setting, pursuing the aim of a creating a more peaceful society may be
linked to ensuring that peace and inclusive agreements are successful, as well as reconciliation
or disarmament initiatives. Providing access to justice – itself critical for peace - may require a
focus on building formal justice systems, but also focusing on transitional and informal justice
mechanisms. And building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions may depend on postconflict statebuilding processes – for example creating new government taxation bodies or
designing new constitutions - as well as democratic processes such as elections at national and
local levels. New Deal processes in its pilot countries have fostered inclusive means for bringing
governments, civil society and donors around a shared plan to address these issues in context
relevant ways that can support the realization of Goal 16.
Together these three sets of principles offer a set of processes and specific instruments that will
support selection, prioritisation and implementation of SDGs in ways that create inclusive
dialogue around the nature of what they mean in specific contexts, and thus how they can be
implemented and monitored most effectively. Not only are they representative of good
development practice and specifically aligned to fragile and conflict settings, they are also
already negotiated and agreed by IDPS stakeholders. Ownership of these principles is strong,
and growing, across countries affected by conflict and fragility, and thus will necessarily support
effective realization of the SDGs.
Finally, it should be noted that the 2030 Agenda has highlighted “partnership” as one of five
cross cutting priorities. It calls for “an intensive global engagement in support of the
implementation of all the Goals and targets, bringing together governments, the private sector,
civil society, the United Nations System and other actors and mobilising all resources.”
Specifically, Goal 17 on the means of implementation has two targets promoting multistakeholder partnership to support the achievement of the SDGs – one focused on sharing
knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, and another to encourage and
promote effective public-private and civil society partnerships, and resourcing these efforts.
Through providing global support to countries affected by conflict and fragility to implement
the SDGs, the New Deal, and the multi-stakeholder International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and
Statebuilding (IDPS) that supports it, represent exactly the kind of partnership envisioned in
Goal 17.
UNDP’s SDG Ready Project
Tailoring support to SDG implementation in countries affected by conflict and fragility is critical.
UNDP will support countries faced with fragile situations to implement and achieve sustainable
outcomes under Agenda 2030 by supporting the mainstreaming of the SDGs in development
plans, informed by comprehensive assessments of the root causes of fragility and with
investment in data management capacities. UNDP is in the process of devising, across cluster
and practice areas, a common approach called SDG Ready, to tackling fragility and risk in
programming around Agenda 2030. This customizable support will focus on systems
development, institutional strengthening and mainstreaming the SDGs within national
development strategies and processes. The programme seeks to identify the drivers and root
causes of fragility, and develop strategic and sequenced approaches to overcome bottlenecks
and accelerate SDG implementation, taking into account local dynamics and context, fostering
national ownership and capacity. UNDP has the knowledge, country presence and expertise to
accompany this group of countries throughout the SDGs cycle, building upon its extensive
experience in governance, institution building, disaster risk reduction, peace-building and
conflict prevention.
3.0
Monitoring SDG progress
The monitoring requirements of the SDGs place a particular burden on countries affected by
conflict and fragility, which have less capacity to monitor and report. The New Deal actors have
been addressing this over the five years of its development and implementation, and have
learned a great deal about the both challenges of monitoring and the opportunities that the use
of the right tools and indicators can generate. Given serious capacity challenges, indicators have
not been used to track progress of the New Deal consistently through regular data collection and therefore have had limited impact on the policy and practice of New Deal stakeholders. The
advent of the SDGs offers an opportunity to address these shortcomings – indeed the Stockholm
Declaration has highlighted the building of data-gathering capacities as an area for action.
During the pilot phase of the New Deal a Menu of Indicators was developed out of a rich, pilot
country driven investigation into indicators that could measure progress against the PSGs.
These indicators will provide useful insight into what might offer context appropriate indicators
that facilitate prioritisation of SDG indicators that can be reported against periodically. Indeed,
many of these indicators shaped the selection of SDG Global indicators. Of the 34 PSG common
indicators, 21 are already included in the global SDG indicator set. These indicators, alongside
the additional 13 not captured in the SDG global indicators, can serve as a thematic set of
‘conflict and fragility indicators’. As well, country-specific New Deal indicators which have
already been selected for use by g7+ countries can be adopted as priority national SDG
indicators
The g7+ are currently agreeing on a set of 19 shared priority SDG indicators, as described in
Annex 2, (one per SDG and three for SDG16), which critically has brought the g7+ into dialogue
around indicator priorities and the institutional capacities required to monitor them. These will
be jointly reported on through a portal that will be housed in the g7+ Secretariat (discussed
further in Annex B). The benefit of doing this would be to draw common lessons and seek
common advocacy positions; the intention is not to replace national priorities or monitoring.
The 19 out of 230 indicators were selected as priorities where progress can be monitored. This
will highlight and support the documenting of common trends in g7+ countries in terms of
progress against SDGs. A periodic report generated will help in advocating addressing the
common challenges by countries affected by conflict and fragility.
4.0
Follow-up and review of SDG progress
The 2030 Agenda calls for national and global follow-up and review process which can
“promote accountability to our citizens, support effective international cooperation in achieving
this Agenda and foster exchanges of best practices and mutual learning.” At national level, it
calls for regular and inclusive reviews of progress. The New Deal has already created multistakeholder structures that can be used at both national levels, e.g. New Deal country teams and
PSG Working Groups, many of which meet the criteria for being inclusive, with civil society
having a seat at the table. These can be used to support national SDG follow-up and review
processes.
At global level, although still being negotiated at the UN, the 2030 Agenda will include an annual
follow-up and review process through the High Level Political Forum, held at heads of state
level every four years. This offers an opportunity for progress towards the SDGs - supported
through the New Deal - to be showcased. In July 2016, two g7+ countries (Sierra Leone and
Togo) will take part in the first follow-up and review process – other g7+ countries will have
opportunities to partake in similar processes in the future. Moreover, it has been proposed that
specific follow-up and review forums be set up for countries in special situations, which could
include a forum for conflict-affected and fragile states.
In the coming years until 2030, some g7+ members will undoubtedly make great progress
against some SDGs. Key principles driving follow-up and review should include: an appropriate
level of effort on monitoring given the efforts invested into implementation; emphasis on
context-appropriate indicators measured in-country and with local validation; and emphasis on
conflict-sensitive definition and measurement of indicators.
Through Agenda 2030, the world pledged to reach the furthest behind first. The New Deal
represents the efforts of those who are furthest behind to build a better future for themselves,
with the support of the global community. This crucial work should continue to inform the
global community of the special situation and requirements of countries affected by conflict and
fragility.
Annex: A Mapping of PSGs and SDGs [OECD graphic]