I would like to share the experience of Finland, and how evaluations of the SDGs are being carried forward at different levels of government.
Finland has been evaluating its progress in implementing the SDGs and has conducted two national evaluations of its 2030 Agenda implementation, both led by the Prime Minister's Office.
The first one was the independent evaluation called PATH2023, commissioned in 2018 by the Finnish government. This evaluation delved into policy documents applying a political economy framework to understand the underlying theory of change and scrutinized the state of sustainable development using the 4Is approach: institutions, interests, ideas, and information. It considered national sustainability indicators, policy objectives, and the global dimension of sustainable development. The analysis involved data from surveys, interviews with experts, and inputs from national workshops. Oversight came from a steering and a support group, with input from the Expert Panel on Sustainable Development and advice from the international evaluation community, in particular EvalPartners.
In 2023, a second evaluation took place, emphasizing progress made since the previous one. This evaluation used qualitative methods, including document analysis, interviews, surveys, and benchmark analysis. Specifically, it involved 45 expert interviews from central government and workshops with 40 participants focusing on the Government's role and societal engagement in implementing Agenda 2030. A survey gathered opinions from various sectors, and a benchmark analysis of the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany provided further insights.The evaluation identified, among others, bottlenecks in the governance model and made recommendations for further development of the Agenda2030 implementation.
The national SDG evaluation process in Finland is intertwined with the Voluntary National Reviews (VNR): these are seen as a channel to feed findings into the strategic and planning cycle and to increase visibility and use of the evaluation in the country. The findings from the 2019 evaluation influenced political parties during parliamentary elections and shaped the 2019 Government program and the 2020 VNR. Similarly, the 2023 evaluation played a vital role in planning the new Government Program and will contribute to the 2025 VNR.
Beyond the national level, the Development Evaluation Unit of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs commissions centralised evaluations of Finland’s development policy and cooperation, where SDGs are integrated through the various development policy objectives. The unit has also issued a guidance note on national evaluation capacity development and country-led evaluations.
Finally, at sub-national and institutional levels, Finnish municipalities and local governments have taken an increasingly active role in incorporating the SDGs and their monitoring and evaluation into their work. Some local governments have developed digital solutions for SDG-related data. Similarly, government institutions and bureaus such as Social Insurance Institution of Finland and Finnish Tax Administration have also embarked on this path.
I am sharing some links and references below, and hope this experience can help other governments in approaching SDG evaluation.
Nea-Mari
Lead Evaluation Specialist; Deputy Director Development Evaluation Unit (EVA-11) Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
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Berg, Annukka; Lähteenoja, Satu; Ylönen, Matti; Korhonen-Kurki, Kaisa; Linko, Tyyra; Lonkila, Kirsi-Marja; Lyytimäki, Jari; Salmivaara, Anna; Salo, Hanna; Schönach, Paula and Suutarinen, Ira (2019) PATH2030 – An evaluation of Finland’s sustainable development policy. Prime Minister’s Office, Helsinki.http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-287-655-3
D'Errico, S., Geoghegan, T. and Piergallini, I. (2020). Evaluation to connect national priorities with the SDGs. IIED, London. Available at https://www.iied.org/17739iied
Haila, Katri; Salminen, Vesa; Roiha, Ulla; Uitto, Heidi; Vikstedt, Elina; Vinnari, Eija; Vakkuri, Jarmo; Oreschnikoff, Aleksis and Uusikylä, Petri (2023) Assessing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Finland. Prime Minister’s Office, Helsinki. Report available (Finnish) and policy brief in English at: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-383-381-4
Räkköläinen, Mari and Saxén, Anu (2022). ”Pathway to the Transformative Policy of Agenda 2030: Evaluation of Finland’s Sustainable Development Policy. In: Uitto, J.I., Batra, G. (eds) Transformational Change for People and the Planet. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78853-7_16
RE: How are we progressing in SDG evaluation?
Dear Emilia,
I would like to share the experience of Finland, and how evaluations of the SDGs are being carried forward at different levels of government.
Finland has been evaluating its progress in implementing the SDGs and has conducted two national evaluations of its 2030 Agenda implementation, both led by the Prime Minister's Office.
The first one was the independent evaluation called PATH2023, commissioned in 2018 by the Finnish government. This evaluation delved into policy documents applying a political economy framework to understand the underlying theory of change and scrutinized the state of sustainable development using the 4Is approach: institutions, interests, ideas, and information. It considered national sustainability indicators, policy objectives, and the global dimension of sustainable development. The analysis involved data from surveys, interviews with experts, and inputs from national workshops. Oversight came from a steering and a support group, with input from the Expert Panel on Sustainable Development and advice from the international evaluation community, in particular EvalPartners.
In 2023, a second evaluation took place, emphasizing progress made since the previous one. This evaluation used qualitative methods, including document analysis, interviews, surveys, and benchmark analysis. Specifically, it involved 45 expert interviews from central government and workshops with 40 participants focusing on the Government's role and societal engagement in implementing Agenda 2030. A survey gathered opinions from various sectors, and a benchmark analysis of the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany provided further insights. The evaluation identified, among others, bottlenecks in the governance model and made recommendations for further development of the Agenda2030 implementation.
The national SDG evaluation process in Finland is intertwined with the Voluntary National Reviews (VNR): these are seen as a channel to feed findings into the strategic and planning cycle and to increase visibility and use of the evaluation in the country. The findings from the 2019 evaluation influenced political parties during parliamentary elections and shaped the 2019 Government program and the 2020 VNR. Similarly, the 2023 evaluation played a vital role in planning the new Government Program and will contribute to the 2025 VNR.
Beyond the national level, the Development Evaluation Unit of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs commissions centralised evaluations of Finland’s development policy and cooperation, where SDGs are integrated through the various development policy objectives. The unit has also issued a guidance note on national evaluation capacity development and country-led evaluations.
Finally, at sub-national and institutional levels, Finnish municipalities and local governments have taken an increasingly active role in incorporating the SDGs and their monitoring and evaluation into their work. Some local governments have developed digital solutions for SDG-related data. Similarly, government institutions and bureaus such as Social Insurance Institution of Finland and Finnish Tax Administration have also embarked on this path.
I am sharing some links and references below, and hope this experience can help other governments in approaching SDG evaluation.
Nea-Mari
Lead Evaluation Specialist; Deputy Director
Development Evaluation Unit (EVA-11)
Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
----
Berg, Annukka; Lähteenoja, Satu; Ylönen, Matti; Korhonen-Kurki, Kaisa; Linko, Tyyra; Lonkila, Kirsi-Marja; Lyytimäki, Jari; Salmivaara, Anna; Salo, Hanna; Schönach, Paula and Suutarinen, Ira (2019) PATH2030 – An evaluation of Finland’s sustainable development policy. Prime Minister’s Office, Helsinki.http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-287-655-3
D'Errico, S., Geoghegan, T. and Piergallini, I. (2020). Evaluation to connect national priorities with the SDGs. IIED, London. Available at https://www.iied.org/17739iied
Haila, Katri; Salminen, Vesa; Roiha, Ulla; Uitto, Heidi; Vikstedt, Elina; Vinnari, Eija; Vakkuri, Jarmo; Oreschnikoff, Aleksis and Uusikylä, Petri (2023) Assessing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Finland. Prime Minister’s Office, Helsinki. Report available (Finnish) and policy brief in English at: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-383-381-4
Ministry for Foreign Affairs (2022) HOW TO? Practical tips for supporting evaluation capacity and systems in partner countries. Available at: https://um.fi/documents/384998/0/Practical_tips_for_supporting_evaluation_capacity_and_systems.pdf/d1ed61b4-4e5a-0198-6f86-4c6766ae8887?t=1678449920584
Räkköläinen, Mari and Saxén, Anu (2022). ”Pathway to the Transformative Policy of Agenda 2030: Evaluation of Finland’s Sustainable Development Policy. In: Uitto, J.I., Batra, G. (eds) Transformational Change for People and the Planet. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78853-7_16
Prime Minister’s Office, Finland (2023) POLICY BRIEF 2023:7. Available at: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-383-381-4 (Accessed 07 December 2023).