Impact of sustainable development goals on strategic planning in the Russian regions

Abstract

Achievement by states of the Sustainable Development Goals proclaimed by the UN in 2015 requires appropriate governance. The most appropriate method is strategic planning. A large number of strategic planning documents have been adopted in Russian regions. The author notes that the words “plan,” “forecast,” “strategy,” “program” are found in the names of 950 thousand legal acts of the regional and municipal levels. This is about 9% of their total. In this article, the author examines regional legislation for the inclusion of ideas on sustainable development. The author uses methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization, and system-structural method. The study results confirm that the regulation of sustainable development is reflected primarily in strategic planning documents. The author shows that references to sustainable development in 88% of cases are found in strategic planning documents. Strategic planning documents are adopted following the federal law “On strategic planning in the Russian Federation". However, the article concludes that the approaches to the formation of strategic planning documents are different. The author demonstrates that similar strategic documents are adopted by various bodies and for different periods. For example, only 46 out of 85 regional development strategies have been adopted until 2030; the rest have different implementation dates. The author concludes that the difference in approaches is permissible, and the intersection of strategic measures in various documents of the same level must be timely excluded.