Are the SDGs a Hegemonic Global Policy Agenda?

Abstract

It is often suggested that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a hegemonic global policy agenda. To test this proposition, we ask what role the SDGs play in what most governments consider their highest policy statement, their national development plan. To what extent are the SDGs, the logic of the interconnected nature of the SDGs, the core themes of poverty, gender and inequality and SDG imagery found in recent national development plans? We use conventional, directed and summative content analysis on 170 plans published between 2016 and 2021 and deploy five measures of the importance that plans accord to the SDGs. There is little evidence from these plans to support the assertion that the SDGs are a hegemonic agenda in development policy. The SDGs are a contested agenda.

Keywords

• national development plans
• Agenda 2030
• SDGs
• content analysis
• Cross-country evaluation
• epistemology of the South