What works to achieve SDG17 – The Partnership Pillar? Emerging Findings and Lessons from the SDG Synthesis Coalition of Evaluative Evidence

DATE: Monday, 17th July, 2023

TIME / DURATION: 18:30 – 20:00 (1hr 30m)

LOCATION: Conference Room 6, UN Secretariat Building, New York

NOTE: This was an in-person event, open to anyone with an HLPF pass

What works to advance investment, trade, and technology transfer in support of the Sustainable Development Goals? As the global community accelerates its efforts towards 2030, this event showcased key findings emerging from an evidence synthesis on the SDG17 – "Partnership for the Goals".  

The event aimed to highlight the preliminary findings and lessons from the Partnership Pillar - SDG17 Synthesis by the American Institutes for Research on behalf of the Global SDG Synthesis Coalition, and open the discussion for a broader audience to foster an exchange among the members of the Steering Committee and other Member States.

Distinguished experts and representatives from Member States discussed the emerging results of synthesis, drawing upon innovative analysis of Voluntary National Reviews and a rigorous assessment of evaluation evidence. The panelists contextualized these findings within the global discussion on accelerating SDG progress, considering also national contexts and sectoral perspectives. Furthermore, this event reflected on the remaining challenges in achieving SDG 17 and identifed priority areas for further exploration, thus contributing to final lessons in preparation for UNGA SDG Summit in September 2023. 

Some of the key preliminary lessons included: 

1. Countries' incentives for collaborating on SDG-17 components are influenced by their income status. Identifying and addressing the incentives of public and private partnerships promotes more effective global cooperation and accelerates SDG progress. 
2. South-South cooperation shows promise to accelerate progress toward SDG-17 results by prioritizing mutual interests, trust and ownership.
3. North-South partnerships achieve more results towards SDG-17 through horizontal collaboration on funding modalities, partnership design and governance structures. 
4. Prioritizing problem analyses and co-creating theories of change can help partners with different incentives achieve results on SDG-17 indicators. 
5. Regional trade agreements are more effective than export subsidies in increasing the value of exports in middle-income countries.
6. Entry into the World Trade Organization has a positive impact on the number of products traded, but not on the average volume of trade per product.
7. EU food standards limit the ability of sub-Saharan African countries to increase their exports after entering into preferential trade agreements with the European Union.
8. While green finance initiatives positively impact innovation in large Asian countries, the effects of current investments have been insufficient to accelerate progress in green innovation. The effectiveness of these initiatives in other contexts remains unknown.
9. Investments in broadband infrastructure enable green innovation in addition to increasing internet access and helping to address the digital divide.
10. Tariff reductions increase exports and innovation in various settings, but they also result in significant reductions in government revenue. 
11. Tax reforms, community-based tax collection and VAT can partially compensate for reductions in tariffs by increasing tax revenue in low-income and middle-income settings.
12. Where tax collection capacity increases and new donors step in, low-income countries are often less dependent on historical providers of Official Development Assistance
13. Development initiatives collect insufficient data to examine how the effects of macro-level initiatives differ for those most likely to be left behind (e.g. women, youth, persons with a disability). 

We were honored to have the following distinguished individuals for this event: