The Spotlight Report 2019 “Reshaping governance for sustainability” Transforming institutions – shifting power – strengthening rights – Global Civil Society Report on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs dives more deeply into the (global) governance arrangements, structures and institutions that will actually be necessary to implement these policies and to unleash the transformative potential of the SDGs.

The report offers analysis and recommendations on how to strengthen inclusive and participatory governance and to overcome structural and institutional obstacles and gaps in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. In doing this, it poses a challenge and a call to action to world leaders just in advance of the SDG Summit in September 2019.

The report consists of three parts: The first contains two overview articles, which highlight key insights of the contributions to this report and messages from national ‘spotlight reports’. The second includes five chapters on cross-cutting governance reform areas that demonstrate the interlinkages between various SDGs and the need to ‘de-silo’ current policy approaches. The third comprises 17 brief ‘Spotlights on the SDGs’, highlighting selected examples of good or bad governance regarding specific goals.

This and previous Spotlight reports are supported by a broad range of global civil society organizations and trade unions. They are also informed by the experiences and reports of national and regional groups and coalitions from all parts of the world. The contributions cover many aspects of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs (and beyond), and reflect the rich geographic and cultural diversity of their authors.

But what all contributions have in common is their fundamental critique of underlying social structures, power relations and governance arrangements. Thus, meaningfully tackling the obstacles and contradictions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs requires more holistic and more sweeping shifts in how and where power is vested, including through institutional, legal, social, economic and political commitments to realizing human rights.

Read here the Spotlight Report on Sustainable Development 2019.