Economist suggests new approaches to policymaking

The implementation of the new global development agenda demands balanced integration of economic, social and environmental dimensions in the national policy frameworks, said Debapriya Bhattacharya, distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.

Bhattacharya spoke at a session of the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) of the United Nations in New York on Tuesday.

Successful delivery of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) will also need greater coherence within global governance structures, he said.

HLPF was created under the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations to monitor progress in SDG achievement during the next 15 years and ensure the accountability of the process. It will also provide guidance on implementation of SDGs, a successor to the millennium development goals (MDGs).

“Public policy interventions and collective actions on the part of the citizens will be critical in meeting the challenges of SDG implementation,” said Bhattacharya, also the chairman of the Southern Voice on Post-MDGs.

“In the future, single goal driven approaches will have to be replaced by a cluster of goals to promote synergy among them, to manage spillovers and to contain tradeoffs. Institutional reforms and enactment of new legal provisions need to complement these.”

Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms need to be set up at national, regional and global levels to provide evidence-based assessment of the effectiveness of the new agenda, he added.

The HLPF session was chaired by Vladimir Drobnjak, Croatian ambassador and vice president of ECOSOC.

Sadia Faizunessa, deputy permanent representative of Bangladesh to the UN, stressed the need to build capacity at all levels to face emerging policy challenges and to mobilise suitable resources to that end.