Governance and multilevel coordination
The responsibility for SDG co-ordination and implementation is shared between the ministries and builds on a “whole-of government” approach. The government bears the main responsibility for implementation, but all ministries are also tasked with co-ordinating the SDGs within their respective remits. Under the previous government, the Ministry for the Environment was responsible for co-ordinating national implementation, while the Ministry for Foreign Affairs oversaw international implementation.
As the national responsibility for the 2030 Agenda implementation is shared across ministries, the government has appointed a task force of state secretaries who meet regularly to exchange information and views on how efforts to attain the SDGs are progressing in the different ministries. In addition, each ministry has one or two civil servants who co-ordinate the work within it. The respective ministerial representatives meet once a month to discuss relevant issues concerning the 2030 Agenda at a national, Nordic, EU, and international level. Important briefings and presentations of relevant reports are provided. The overall work of the government on the 2030 Agenda is co-ordinated by two ministries: At a national level by the Ministry of the Environment while international co-ordination is managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A national co-ordinator has been appointed in Sweden with a mandate that runs from 2020–2024. Their key role is to support the government in implementing the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs in Sweden by initiating, promoting, strengthening other actors’ efforts. The national co-ordinator invites representatives from different areas to work together with different objectives linked to the SDGs. The
five priority areas: leadership for social transformation; sustainable economic development; transformation at local and regional levels; data for sustainable development; and sustainable consumption and production.
Government agencies have an important role to play in achieving the SDGs. Along with the municipalities and regions, they are responsible for implementation of the agenda. Several knowledge sharing forums have been established to enhance SDG work; these include the
DG Forum which consists of 90 Swedish government agencies with a joint pledge seeking to make the 2030 Agenda a central plank of public administration.
Sweden’s
National Strategy for Climate Adaptation from 2018 also underpins the country’s sustainability efforts, seeking to mitigate and adapt to climate change, halt the loss of biodiversity and restore ecosystems. Through it, the government has also appealed for further co-ordination and policy coordination in meeting targets while seeking to avoid conflicting goals. An Environmental Objectives Council has thus been set up by the government, which acts as a platform for action and work at all levels of society to achieve Sweden’s environmental objectives.
High priority is also placed on social sustainability, including gender mainstreaming and public health policies. Also in place are support structures for public health at central government level, a Council for Sustainable Cities, one for Youth, one for Inter-agency collaboration in international development, and one for joint work by county administrative boards.
A new government came to power in October 2022 and may introduce policies that affect the current Agenda 2030 systems.
National implementation of the 2030 Agenda
During the spring of 2023,
Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union (also known as the Council of Ministers), a period in which the European Commission is in the process of drafting a joint European Voluntary Review for the UN’s High-Level Political Forum 2023. One of the
key policy areas during Sweden’s EU Presidency will be speeding up climate transition in line with sustainability and green targets.
The 2030 Agenda is reviewed annually in the national budget. Although it is an element of the budget it does not have budget lines, since the starting point for implementation is that it should be incorporated into ordinary policy processes.
Regional and local level implementation
Municipalities and regions play an important role in localising the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Sweden submitted a
voluntary sub-national review (VSR) in 2021, which was written by SKR, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. In addition, the cities of
Helsingborg,
Malmö,
Stockholm and
Uppsala also carried out voluntary local reviews that were presented at the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) in 2021.
At a regional level, county administrative boards have worked together on the 2030 Agenda since 2017. They play an important role in implementing the national objectives through partnerships with the municipalities. They also encourage knowledge sharing within and between counties and are represented in the DG forum.
At the local level, the peer-to-peer network called
Glokala Sverige has hosted workshops for municipal and regional administrations and politicians to learn more about SDG localisation, including the “Mötesplats Agenda 2030” conference.
Until spring 2023, the network has been co-ordinated by the Swedish UN Association together with SKR and ICLD (International Centre for Local Democracy) with the support of Sida, the Swedish Development Agency. Over
200 municipal and regional members are active in the network, 70% of whom use the SDGs as tools in local development work.
The Swedish Agency for Public Management (Statskontoret) monitors progress at a local, regional, and national levels. Their
report from 2020 underscored that although a clear majority of municipalities and regions apply the 2030 Agenda in their sustainability work a wide variation in the level of ambition exists. The risk of exacerbating differences between resource-rich and resource-poor municipalities and regions is, therefore, evident.
Engagement of civil society and stakeholders
Multiple actors in Sweden are involved in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Civil society is paving the way through its own efforts and by encouraging action from decision makers. Since 2018,
Concord, on behalf of Swedish CSOs, has conducted the ‘
Barometer-reports’ assessing the government’s work on Agenda 2030 and the extent to which these efforts contribute to sustainable global development. The 2021 review, conducted by 19 organisations, points out that some of the global outlooks are limiting and that assessing government progress is challenging. Civil society would like to see a strengthened cross-party parliamentary forum on the 2030 Agenda, to ensure that Swedish policy is coherent and founded on the rights perspective, and that the perspective of poor people on development is also included.
The private sector is also responsible for introducing several innovative 2030 SDG features into its business models, while trade unions continue to push for social dialogue and decent working conditions
. The research community contributes its findings and innovation on sustainable development; examples include the
SDG Synergies tool developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute, which can be used to understand how groups of policy areas and targets interact, using systems thinking to support governments in implementing the SDGs.
Follow-up mechanisms, reporting, and international comparisons
In addition to the annual reviews of the Parliament’s targets for Agenda 2030 in the Budget, and the government’s biannual report to the Parliament, Statistics Sweden is the government agency responsible for the statistical monitoring and co-ordination of the SDG indicators targets. An updated list of
national indicators in 2022 is available. The country also has the
Kolada database in which all municipalities can retrieve key indicators and data for analyses of sustainability progress. The key figures in Kolada are based on national statistics from Statistiska centralbyrån (SCB), but data is also drawn from other sources. Kolada is owned by the non-profit association Council for the Promotion of Municipal Analyses (RKA) in partnership with the government and SKR. For local and regional authorities Kolada enables self-assessment and open comparison of SDG progress across all municipalities.
Internationally, Sweden ranks in the top tier of many comparison tables of Agenda 2030 implementation. However, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have hampered progress and exacerbated existing challenges. The country
ranks third in the Sustainable Development Report in 2022 but also contributes to considerable negative spillover effects in other countries with a score of 65.7/100. This is better than Iceland and Norway but worse than Finland and Denmark.