Sustainable Development Goals

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Economic and social commission for asia and the pacific

Coherently addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals requires planning tools that guide policy makers. Given the integrative nature of the SDGs, we believe that integrative modelling techniques are especially useful for this purpose. In this paper, we present and demonstrate the use of the new System Dynamics based iSDG family of models. We use a national model for Tanzania to analyse impacts of substantial investments in photovoltaic capacity. Our focus is on the impacts on three SDGs: SDG 3 on healthy lives and well-being, SDG 4 on education, and SDG 7 on energy. In our simulations, the investments in photovoltaics positively affect life expectancy, years of schooling and access to electricity. More importantly, the progress on these dimensions synergizes and leads to broader system-wide impacts. While this one national example illustrates the anticipated impact of an intervention in one specific area on several SDGs, the iSDG model can be used to support similar analyses for policies related to all the 17 SDGs, both individually and concurrently. We believe that integrated models such as the iSDG model can bring interlinks to the forefront and facilitate a shift to a discussion on development grounded in systems thinking.

Policy coherence to achieve the SDGs : using integrated simulation models to assess effective policies (SPECIAL FEATURE : Sustainability Science and Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that can facilitate agility in higher education and to analyze the interrelationship between the factors.,A structured model of factors facilitating agility in higher education was developed using total interpretive structural modeling (TISM). Cross-impact matrix multiplication (MICMAC) analysis helped in classifying the factors on the basis of their driving and dependency power.,An extensive literature review and expert opinion helped in identifying eight enablers that can promote agility in higher education. The ability to sense the environment, organizational structure, adoption of ICT, organizational learning, human resource strategies, leadership, readiness to change and collaboration with the stakeholders were the eight factors identified. The structural model revealed leadership as the most crucial enabler followed by human resource strategies and organizational structure.,The model has incorporated and prioritized all the crucial drivers of agility that can help universities and colleges design, adopt and implement policies and practices that would facilitate agility.,So far, the research on agility in higher education has looked into each factor in isolation. This research provides a comprehensive list of the factors and establishes the interplay between the factors making this study new and original.

Factors influencing organizational agility in higher education

Open questions

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) were result of extensive stakeholder participation and global consensus. Despite large promises, there is an increasing concern among the member states whet...

Concerns of developing countries and the sustainable development goals: case for India

The global agenda of sustainable development (SD) will get a major boost from the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries. This requires effective planning and understanding of the SDGs at the national level and developing sound SDG indicators that account for country priorities. Currently, there is no formal SDG indicator set in India, but the process for it is underway. This paper has attempted to propose a unique technique for identifying the most representative indicator set for SD measurement in India based on the SDGs. Considering the needs and preferences of the country, a three‐stage process is proposed to develop the priority indicator set. The application of the approach has been presented for SDG 7, which relates to energy. This is supported with a background on India's SD progress. The proposed technique is simple yet effective, and can be easily replicated by other developing countries.

Developing an indicator set for measuring sustainable development in India

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and its measurement is a key policy focus across the globe. Despite existence of several indices and reporting agencies, it is a challenging task to identify progress, specifically in the case of developing economies. These economies are predominantly in Asia and Africa and have a great bearing on global performance. These countries have diverse geographical and cultural elements with an active sub-national institutional framework. Data gap coupled with poor data quality and limited financial support does not help their case. Without appropriate indicator selection and index measurement it is not possible to judge the actual current situation or compare the SDG situation around the world. This paper attempts a practical and simpler approach to overcome the constraints, provide direction and facilitate measurement of SDG position in such countries using the case of India. This is done by identifying gaps, suggesting a tailored approach to indicator selection and measurement and further, developing a suitable index for SDG measurement at the sub-national level. The results and findings should be of great interest for policy making and implementing agencies.

Data Gap Analysis, Indicator Selection and Index Development: A Case for Developing Economies

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to create a hierarchy of critical success factors affecting the higher technical education institutions, taking a case study of India. Using total interpretive structural modeling (TISM), the paper attempts to establish the inter-linkages among ten critical success factors for enhancing the performance of these institutions.




Design/methodology/approach




The paper employs Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM) to understand the hierarchy of the factors and their interplay using response from 18 experts in the domain.




Findings




The findings reveal that autonomy and accountability coupled with availability of sustainable funds are the driving factors for the success of the institutions. Infrastructural facilities and establishment of centers of excellence act as amplification factors. Introduction of new programs and their accreditation, improvement in faculty quality, research output and improvement in performance of academically weak students emerge as process factors that drive the output factors, namely, academic performance and student placement.




Research limitations/implications




The major limitation of this study is the scope that was limited to 191 institutions, as mandated in the project.




Practical implications




This study has important implications for the institutions as well as the policy makers to channelize their focus and efforts on driving and amplification factors that would ultimately lead to enhanced performance of the next generation higher technical education institutions.




Originality/value




This paper is a part of pan India project carried out to assess the performance of higher technical education institutions in India.

Critical success factors for next generation technical education institutions

In recent decades, in the wake of accelerated globalization, the issue of output coupling/decoupling has assumed considerable importance in academic as well as in policy debates. Special attention has been focussed on the following four issues (i) whether economies are getting increasingly synchronized in their cyclical behaviour and in particular whether EMEs are getting synchronized with the advanced group of countries (or otherwise) and/or among themselves ? (ii) whether similar synchronization is also evident in the growth profiles of EMEs and advanced economies ? (iii) what are the main factors driving this two types of synchronization ? and (iv) are the factors driving growth synchronization different from those driving business cycle co-movements? This is a single-country study which examines the decoupling issue from the perspective of the Indian economy over a fairly long time span viz. 1961–2008, dividing the same into three sub-periods characterized by relative insularity (1961–1978), restricted globalization (1979–1993) and full-scale globalization (1994–2008). Among the important potential determinants of co-movements suggested by the available literature are inter-industry and intra-industry trade intensities, co-ordination of fiscal and monetary policy, financial integration etc. Our key finding is that the economic determinants for India’s cyclical synchronization differ across short (16–32 months) and medium cycles (32–64 months) and vis-a-vis growth spillovers.

Amlendu Dubey

Papers

Concerns of developing countries and the sustainable development goals: case for India

Developing an indicator set for measuring sustainable development in India

Data Gap Analysis, Indicator Selection and Index Development: A Case for Developing Economies

Critical success factors for next generation technical education institutions

India in the globalized economy : Growth spillovers & business cycle synchronization