Governance of Sustainable Development Goal programs

This chapter will explain how a viable systems model developed from cybernetics, the science of communications and controls in machines and living things, can be adapted to the governance of initiatives delivered through projects and programs aimed to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). While the UN has specified discrete goals for each SDG, it has been criticized for not taking a systemic view of governance by considering inter-relationships between the goals. Therefore, an integrative governance mechanism is required to ensure that the inter-related goals are managed together in delivering the UN SDGs. This chapter is an extension of the use of the viable systems model that has been discussed in two other chapters in the handbook and that has been used in this chapter as a governance framework for the UN SDG programs. The chapter shows how a systemic governance approach can be useful to the governance of projects in a program in which civil society and businesses must work together to achieve an aspirational goal that benefits the world. Several theories have been recommended to improve the governance of projects. These will be discussed in the chapter to propose a viable governance framework to improve the governance of projects and programs being undertaken to achieve the UN SDGs.