Scoping SDG interlinkages and methods to infer them

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have generated a framework of goals, targets and indicators which aim at - among others - ending poverty, improving health, reducing inequality, and spurring economic growth. In this scoping study we examine the focus, methods and approaches used to extract interlinkages between the SDGs and their targets. To that end, we perform a systematic literature review and discuss the outcomes of an expert solicitation workshop with SDG experts to generate a framework of analysis. We evidence that the interlinkages domain is still exploratory, largely neglecting the local level and being disconnected to policy making. Methods used predominantly account for statistical and conceptual associations and correlations between SDGs, targets and indicators, and not for causal ones; hardly replicated, reproduced and verified. We therefore propose a framework of analysis, which takes into account those gaps to generate a process of integrating interlinkages into the policy and decision making process.