Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets (Misum) held a lunch session on ’Reaching the SDGs: Post COVID inclusive economic recovery’ with Professor Ranjula Bali Swain.

Universal, ambitious, and arguably ambiguous, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are difficult to measure, monitor, prioritize and achieve. The goals are a multi-dimensional construct of economic, social and environmental indicators that work through complex interlinkages.

The 'Decade of Action' to achieve the SDGs by 2030 is off to a very challenging start. With progress on the achievement of most SDGs already lagging behind before the COVID-19 crisis, the pandemic is expected to negatively impact almost 90% of the SDG targets.

In this online session, Prof. Bali Swain will give context and investigate the interlinkages at the SDG target level to identify the trade-offs and synergies between the SDGs. Analyzing network structures for different regions, she suggests that universal benchmarking of SDGs is counterproductive, arguing that it may be useful to identify a specific community of SDG targets, and use them as a guide to prioritize certain goals in different regions.

Professor Ranjula Bali Swain is an Affiliated Researcher and a Visiting Professor at Misum. She is Professor of Economics at Södertörn University and is affiliated to the Center for European Research in Microfinance (CERMi), at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and Uppsala University and Research Director at Center for Sustainability Research (CSR).

Academic References from the seminar

CRITIQUE: Source: Spaiser, V., Ranganathan, Bali Swain, R. & Sumpter, D. The Sustainable Development Oxymoron: Quantifying and Modelling the Incompatibility of Sustainable Development Goals, International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, Vol. 24(6), pp. 457-470, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2016.1235624

INTERLINKAGES: Source: Bali Swain, R. and Ranganathan, S. Modeling Interlinkages between Sustainable Development Goals Using Network Analysis, forthcoming in World Development, 138, 105136, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105136

BENCHMARKING: Source: Bali Swain, R. and Ranganathan, S. Modeling Interlinkages between Sustainable Development Goals Using Network Analysis, forthcoming in World Development, 138, 105136, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105136

STRATEGIES: Source: Bali Swain, R. and Wallentin, F.Y. Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Predicaments and Strategies, International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 27(2), 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2019.1692316

SDGs 2020? POST-COVID?: Source: Francesco Fuso Nerini, Maryna Henrysson, Ashok Swain, Ranjula Bali Swain, Sustainable Development in the wake of Covid-19, pre-print Nature Research. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-63414/v1