Agenda 2030: systemic interrelationships between the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

The SDGs were designed as an integrated set of interdependent priorities and objectives. This relation is of paramount importance, since it was noted, still in the implementation of the MDGs, the lack of integration between the sectors. This article, through network analysis, discusses the interrelationships between the SDGs based on cross-cutting themes, seeking to favor a systemic view by highlighting those who are more and less connected and the themes that relate them. As a theoretical-methodological guidance to analyze them, we sought the systemic view that opposes compartmentalization, sectorization and fragmentation of knowledge. The categories were assigned using the Discourse Network Analysis software, in which text fragments are assigned a category, goal and corresponding SDG. Using the Gephi 0.9.2 software, the matrices were used to generate graphical representations of the interaction networks that analyze the relationship between the SDGs. Discussing the categories common to two SDGs (that is, the elements that make up the relationship) was a way to explore the connections in a systematic way. This study brought an analysis of networks to describe more closely the extremes of interactions. In this sense, the strongest peer-to-peer relationships were between: ODS 8-4, ODS 2-14, ODS 8-12, ODS 8-2 and ODS 2-11. Weaker relations were established about SDG 5-12, SDG 5-14, SDG 5-15, SDG 1-7, SDG 5-13, SDG 7-13. Although there are criticisms of the proposal or its implementation, the SDGs have become a world reference and a window of opportunity for the development of more integrated public policies and overcoming the barriers of sectorialism. It is essential that the barriers of sectorialism and fragmented vision are overcome, considering the explicitly strengthened interactions that must be fulfilled, and the absent interactions that deserve attention for the implementation of the 2030 agenda effectively.