Managing Cross-Sectoral Coordination in Accelerating the Sustainable Development Agenda

    Building on my previous editorial notes on sustainable development themes, I would like to expand our discussion on how the concept of cross-sectoral coordination can be a booster for the sustainable development agenda. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established actions to end poverty, improve health and education, and promote prosperity and well-being by considering environmental sustainability, which requires value changes, institutional changes, and cultural adjustment. Managing cross-sectoral interests with coordinated aims, strategies, and instruments is essential to overcome complex problems and develop more comprehensive solutions in accelerating SDG programs. Creating a more integrative manner to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of public policies are key concepts for optimizing the benefits and impact of development outcomes. This policy integration and coordination is crucial to enhancing sustainable development programs, which balance economic advancement, sustainable ecosystem management, and environmental protection; therefore, it requires an inter-sector approach and coordinating mechanisms for all programs and projects.

     In fact, many complex development agendas often require the coordination and integration of cross-sectoral policies to produce better program outcomes. Policies that cross sectors can be challenging to implement since they require coordination and may create conflict because of the different interests of sectoral actors. Yet, the collaboration of actors in different sectors may stimulate processes of policy and organizational learning, leading to better policy design and more efficient implementation.

   In terms of producing optimum benefits of project or program development, interrelationships among sectors is important. The quality of a project or program outcome is a result of the quality of the sectoral internal properties that will be used to evaluate value for money (i.e., worth perceived by stakeholders). For example, the difference between a sustainable and a traditional highway project is to be found through the relationship between the co-creation of the economic benefits output and the quality of secondary properties such as urban, industrial, or tourism development, connections to other transportation infrastructure modes (e.g., airport, seaport), and so on. Each sector’s policy is also the result of various influences such as productivity, job creation, profits, and the environment. These influential factors are affected by relationships to other moderating variables such as financial constraints, poor project management, and a lack of commitment. As such, we can set about searching for advantages and better direct our new project or product development process if we can anticipate which aspects of design are more attractive to stakeholders—their perceived worth. Integrating benefits resulting from cross-sector coordination will boost project or program performance. Therefore, comprehensive planning for infrastructure development requires cross-sectoral coordination, which means that all sector-specific actor (from the ministries of transportation, public works, tourism, agriculture, industry, and the environment, to the private sector) preferences and interests must be coordinated and integrated. This coordination and integration will then be evaluated based on the project’s success in optimizing it’s benefits and usage. Furthermore, an underground infrastructure tunnel that will be used to overcome congestion, reduce flooding, and increase transportation accessibility in one public railway and stormwater infrastructure (PRASTI) tunnel will arguably create more benefits in terms of project efficiency and effectiveness, have greater economic impacts, and enhance the feasibility of social infrastructure projects such as flood control, compared to separate development of each project.

     Science and technology development plays a significant role in achieving sustainable development by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of new and more sustainable approaches to development. Investments in green technology, efficient and effective processes, safer materials, and improved performances and outcomes are some results of such development. Technological development in utilizing renewable energy resources, building urban water systems and sustainable public infrastructure, increasing food production, and producing environmentally friendly materials and products are among the pathways by which technology will significantly contribute to achieving sustainable development targets.