- The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015 call on (inter)governmentaland private actors, the market, local governments and citizens to work together to achieve them.
- The SDGs are not a wish list. They are accompanied by 169 sub-objectives and 247 indicators to measure them.
- Each country shouldproceed with the instrumentalisation of the SDGs by developing National Strategies – National Action Plans (NAPs) that will specify the targets and indicators inline with its own circumstances, while providing a clear and realistic timetable and budget (detailed costing and clarification of the funding mechanism).
- NGOs should link their work to National Policies/Strategies/National Action Plans. To do this they need to improve their strategic planning both overall and at the level of their interventions.
- Linking the work of NGOs to the National Action Plans will allow them to take a more active role: a) in the formulation of the NAPs, b) in their implementation and c) in monitoring the progress of their implementation beyond their narrow scope (watchdog role).
Read here the Policy brief by Evgenia Vathakou, ELIAMEP Research Associate; Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of the Peloponnese, in Greek.