Senegal’s Voluntary National Review Highlights Importance of Integrated Planning for the SDGs

The Government of Senegal presented its Voluntary National Review (VNR) during the High-level Segment/Ministerial Meeting of the 2018 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) held at the United Nations in July. 

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The VNR notes that the process of aligning the SDGs and the ‘Plan Emergent Senegal’ (PSE) – the policy framework to achieve sustainable development by – was conducted with technical support from the Millennium Institute, using the iSDG model customized for Senegal. The report identifies priority actions covering nearly 77% of the SDG targets – among them climate change, agriculture, and good governance – which have the greatest cross-sector impacts on achieving the SDGs in Senegal.

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The research conducted by Millennium Institute in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Planning, revealed that the continuation of current policies ('business-as-usual' scenario) leads to average achievement of the SDGs of about 29%. The level of achievement can be improved to over 61% with implementation of policies included in the PSE coupled with further strategic policy adjustments ('optimistic' scenario). However, in absolute terms, the level of achievement remains modest for SDG 4, 5 and 9. The interventions that have the most cross-sector impacts are those related to investments for climate change adaptation; broadening the tax base and increasing transfers to the poorest; agriculture, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and food policies; and good governance.

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The research also identified positive and negative synergies emerging from the joint implementation of all the policies included in the optimistic scenario. Especially for SDG 2, 5, 9, and 17, the simulations indicated positive synergies resulting from improved enabling conditions and reinforcing mechanisms caused by policies in other areas. Conversely, the research identified negative synergies for SDG 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, and 16.

 

Overall, the contribution of synergies to the observed results is markedly positive, highlighting the importance of integrated planning and implementation of interventions directed to achieve the SDGs.

 

The research report is available from the ministry's website and the VNR is available from the HLPF website.