SDG-proof
policy at national and local levels ^______

All future financial and policy commitments in Ireland should include mandatory SDG conditions to ensure progress across all sectors in Irish society, enabling Policy Coherence for Sustainable Developmentand ensuring that new policy measures are aligned with the Goals. Such a commitment would also help the State avoid a situation whereby the policies of one government department undermine an SDG which is the responsibility of another part of government. Despite improvements to the SDG National Stakeholder Fora, they remain untethered to tangible policy outcomes and are at risk of being labelled as talking shops and show and tells unless meaningfully linked to policy outcomes.

Moreover, localisation is crucial to SDG delivery and not enough is being done at a local level to enable communities to be true partners in SDG delivery. Councils are also not adequately supported to carry out local SDG review and adapt accordingly. Alignment with the SDGs should be the driving objective of State policy from this point forward.

We urge the government to:

Create a national SDG Policy Impact Measurement Framework, which should include set criteria for all future regional and national policy in relation to the implementation and reporting of the SDGs.

Guide local authorities on how to embed the SDGs in city and county plans.

Fund an SDG Officer in every local authority.

Enable the PPNs, LENs, ETBs and communities to be true partners in policy design and SDGs implementation, including by empowering local communities to carry out Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs) and Voluntary Community Reviews (VCRs).

Roll-out an SDG public communications plan (which Ireland still does not have despite the Agenda 2030 being agreed almost 9 years ago).

Revise the Terms of Reference for the SDG National Stakeholder Fora to ensure they are used as spaces to foster policy alignment with the principles and targets of Agenda2030, in particular reaching the furthest behind first.