Prioritizing sustainable development goals in Africa: Perspectives from academia in Ghana and Uganda

Paddy Mugambe; Florence Abugtane Avogo

doi:10.29333/ejosdr/14783

Full Text (PDF)

Paddy Mugambe ¹ ^* , Florence Abugtane Avogo ²

More Detail

¹ Uganda Management Institute, Kampala, UGANDA² Technische Universitat, Berlin, GERMANY^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) are interlinked targets for global development adopted in 2015 to be achieved by 2030. While UN prioritizes progress for those countries further behind, individual countries set their own priorities within SDGs based on their circumstances. The prioritization is a recognition that certain goals may hold greater significance than others. The paper examines how academic staff in selected African higher education institutions prioritize these goals using Q-sort technique in Ghana and Uganda, supplemented by a survey for the logical reasoning behind the ranking. The paper highlights that each country has distinct preferences for SDG actions influenced by their unique circumstances. Additionally, it suggests that countries’ periodic SDG performance may not solely result from national efforts but also from factors like natural events and luck.

Keywords

SDGs
country SDG ranking
perception
Africa
Ghana
Uganda

License

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EUR J SUSTAIN DEV RES, Volume 8, Issue 3, 2024, Article No: em0263

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejosdr/14783

Publication date: 09 Jul 2024

Article Views: 201

Article Downloads: 43

Open Access References How to cite this article

References

Acharya, U. (2021). Sustainable development practices in developing countries: Major drivers and future discourse. Nepalese Journal of development and Rural studies, 18(01), 61-66. https://doi.org/10.3126/njdrs.v18i01.41951
Allen, C., Metternicht, G., & Wiedmann, T. (2018). Initial progress in implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs): A review of evidence from countries. Sustainability Science, 13, 1453-1467. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0572-3
Andreoni, V., & Miola, A. (2016). Competitiveness and sustainable development. Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2788/64453
Betsch, T. (2005). Preference theory: An affect-based approach to recurrent decision making. In T. Betsch, & S. Haberstroh (Eds.), The routines of decision making (pp. 39-65). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Brown, S. R. (1980). Political subjectivity: Applications of Q methodology in political science. Yale University Press.
Brundtland, G. H. (1987). Our common future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Geneva, UN-Dokument A/42/427. http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-ov.htm
Costanza, R., Fioramonti, L., & Kubiszewski, I. (2016). The UN sustainable development goals and the dynamics of human well-being. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14, Article 59. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1231
Danlardi, S., Prasad, M. S. V., Modibbo,U. M., Ahmadi, S. A., & Ghasimi, P. (2023). Attaining sustainable development goals through financial inclusion: Exploring collaborative approaches to Fintech adoption in developing economies. Sustainability, 15, Article 13039. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151713039
De La Poza, E., Merello, P., Barberá, A., & Celani, A. (2021). Universities’ reporting on SDGs: Using the impact rankings to model and measure their contribution to sustainability, Sustainability, 13(4), 2038. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042038
Dernbach, J. C. (2003). Achieving sustainable development: The centrality and multiple facets of integrated decisionmaking. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 10, 247-285. https://doi.org/10.1353/gls.2003.0006
Emas, R. (2015). The concept of sustainable development: Definition and defining principles. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5839GSDR%202015_SD_concept_definiton_rev.pdf
Eppinga, M. B., Mijts, E. N., & Santos, M. J. (2022). Ranking the sustainable development goals: Perceived sustainability priorities in small island states. Sustainability Science, 17, 1537-1556. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01100-7
Fang, K., Xu, A., Wang, S., Jia, X., Liao, Z., Tan, R. R., Sun, H., & Su, F. (2023). Progress towards sustainable development goals in the belt and road Initiative countries. Journal of Cleaner Production, 424, Article 138808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.138808
Forestier, O., & Kim, R. E. (2020). Cherry‐picking the sustainable development goals: Goal prioritization by national governments and implications for global governance. Sustainable Development, 28(5), 1269-1278. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2082
Fukuda-Parr, S. (2019). Keeping out extreme inequality from the SDG agenda–The politics of indicators. Global Policy, 10, 61-69. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12602
Fukuda-Parr, S., & Muchhala, B. (2020). The Southern origins of sustainable development goals: Ideas, actors, aspirations. World Development, 126, Article 104706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104706
Guillen-Royo, M. (2019). Sustainable consumption and wellbeing: Does online shopping matter? Journal of Cleaner Production, 229, 1112-1124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.05.061
Hassan, H., Ghodsi, M., & Howel, G. (2010). A note on standard deviation and standard error. Teaching Mathematics and Its Applications. 29, 108-112. https://doi.org/10.1093/teamat/hrq003
Kar, S. S., & Ramalingam, A. (2013). Is 30 the magic number? Issues in sample size estimation. National Journal of Community Medicine, 4, 175-179.
Malthus, T. (1798). An essay on the principle of population. St. Paul’s Church-Yard.
Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., & Behrens, W. W. (1972). The limits to growth. Universe Books.
Miola, A., Borchhardt, S., Neher, F., & Buscaglia, D. (2019). Interlinkages and policy coherence for the sustainable development goals implementation: An operational method to identify trade-offs and co-benefits in a systemic way. Publications Office of the European Union.
Nilsson, M., Griggs, D., & Visbeck, M., (2016). Policy: Map the interactions between sustainable development goals. Nature, 534, 320-322. https://doi.org/10.1038/534320a
Purvis, B., Mao, Y., & Robinson, D. (2018). Three pillars of sustainability: In search of conceptual origins. Sustainability Science, 14(3), 681-695. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5
Reyers, B., & Selig, E. R. (2020). Global targets that reveal the social-ecological interdependencies of sustainable development. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 4(8), 1011-1019. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1230-6
Running, K. (2012). Examining environmental concerns in developed, transitioning, and developing countries-A cross-country test of the objective problems and subjective value explanations. World Value Research, 5(1), 1-25.
Sachs, J., Lafortune, G., Kroll, C., Fuller, G., & Woelm, F. (2022). From crisis to sustainable development: The SDGs as roadmap to 2030 and beyond. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009210058
Stoddart, H. (2011). A pocket guide to sustainable development governance. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?menu=35&nr=147&page=view&type=400
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2021). Global population growth and sustainable development. United Nations. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2022_global_population_growth.pdf
UN Economic Commission for Africa. (2020). Accelerating equitable and sustainable development in Africa: 2020 Africa sustainable development report. https://www.uneca.org
UN Economic Commission for Africa. (2022). Building back better from the coronavirus disease while advancing the full implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. https://www.uneca.org
UN General Assembly. (1987). Report of the world commission on environment and development: Our common future. United Nations. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf
UN. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. United Nations. https://wedocs.unep.org/20.500.11822/9814
UN. (2023). Global sustainable development report 2023. United Nations. https://sdgs.un.org/publications/global-sustainable-development-report-2023
UNDP (2023), Africa Sustainable Development Report. Accelerating the recovery from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and African Union Agenda 2063 at all levels. https://www.undp.org/africa/publications/2023-africa-sustainable-development-report
Vivien, S. (2023). Sustainable development: Balancing economic prosperity and environmental concerns. Journal of Economics and Economic Education Research, 24(4), 1-3.
Walesiak, M., & Dehnel, G. (2024). Progress on SDG 7 achieved by EU countries in relation to the target year 2030: A multidimensional indicator analysis using dynamic relative taxonomy. PLoS ONE, 19(2), Article e0297856. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297856

How to cite this article

APA

Mugambe, P., & Avogo, F. A. (2024). Prioritizing sustainable development goals in Africa: Perspectives from academia in Ghana and Uganda. European Journal of Sustainable Development Research, 8(3), em0263. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejosdr/14783

Vancouver

Mugambe P, Avogo FA. Prioritizing sustainable development goals in Africa: Perspectives from academia in Ghana and Uganda. EUR J SUSTAIN DEV RES. 2024;8(3):em0263. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejosdr/14783

AMA

Mugambe P, Avogo FA. Prioritizing sustainable development goals in Africa: Perspectives from academia in Ghana and Uganda. EUR J SUSTAIN DEV RES. 2024;8(3), em0263. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejosdr/14783

Chicago

Mugambe, Paddy, and Florence Abugtane Avogo. "Prioritizing sustainable development goals in Africa: Perspectives from academia in Ghana and Uganda". European Journal of Sustainable Development Research 2024 8 no. 3 (2024): em0263. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejosdr/14783

Harvard

Mugambe, P., and Avogo, F. A. (2024). Prioritizing sustainable development goals in Africa: Perspectives from academia in Ghana and Uganda. European Journal of Sustainable Development Research, 8(3), em0263. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejosdr/14783

MLA

Mugambe, Paddy et al. "Prioritizing sustainable development goals in Africa: Perspectives from academia in Ghana and Uganda". European Journal of Sustainable Development Research, vol. 8, no. 3, 2024, em0263. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejosdr/14783