Coherently addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals requires planning tools that guide policy makers. Given the integrative nature of the SDGs, we believe that integrative modelling techniques are especially useful for this purpose. In this paper, we present and demonstrate the use of the new System Dynamics based iSDG family of models. We use a national model for Tanzania to analyse impacts of substantial investments in photovoltaic capacity. Our focus is on the impacts on three SDGs: SDG 3 on healthy lives and well-being, SDG 4 on education, and SDG 7 on energy. In our simulations, the investments in photovoltaics positively affect life expectancy, years of schooling and access to electricity. More importantly, the progress on these dimensions synergizes and leads to broader system-wide impacts. While this one national example illustrates the anticipated impact of an intervention in one specific area on several SDGs, the iSDG model can be used to support similar analyses for policies related to all the 17 SDGs, both individually and concurrently. We believe that integrated models such as the iSDG model can bring interlinks to the forefront and facilitate a shift to a discussion on development grounded in systems thinking.

As countries pursue sustainable development across sectors as diverse as health, agriculture, and infrastructure, sectoral policies interact, generating synergies that alter their effectiveness. Identifying those synergies ex ante facilitates the harmonization of policies and provides an important lever to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. However, identifying and quantifying these synergetic interactions are infeasible with traditional approaches to policy analysis. In this paper, we present a method for identifying synergies and assessing them quantitatively. We also introduce a typology of 5 classes of synergies that enables an understanding of their causal structures. We operationalize the typology in pilot studies of SDG strategies undertaken in Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, and Malawi. In the pilots, the integrated SDG (iSDG) model was used to simulate the effects of policies over the SDG time horizon and to assess the contributions of synergies. Synergy contributions to overall SDG performance were 7% for Cote d'Ivoire, 0.7% for Malawi, and 2% for Senegal. We estimate the value of these contributions to be 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) for Cote d'Ivoire, 0.4% for Malawi, and 0.7% for Senegal. We conclude that enhanced understanding of synergies in sustainable development planning can contribute to progress on the SDGs-and free substantial amounts of resources.

Achieving human development in the Anthopocene necessitates rethinking sustainability. Prospects are unclear for attaining the well-being oriented SDGs without further worsening environmental deterioration, thereby threatening the success of the whole 2030 Agenda. Nascent World-Earth modelling efforts link human well-being with global environmental impacts through economic production, which is tracked by GDP - in modelling and real-world decision-making alike. This raises the question of how GDP per person relates to achievement of well-being as targeted by the SDGs. We examined historic correlations on five-year intervals, 1980-2015, between average income and the advancement on indicators on SDGs 1 to 7. This was done both for seven world regions and the world as a whole. We find uniform patterns of saturation for all regions above a clear income threshold around US$15 000 measured in 2011 US$ purchasing power parity (PPP)– a level where main human needs and capabilities are met, consistent with studies of life satisfaction and the Easterlin paradox. We observe stark differences with respect to scale: the patterns of the world as an aggregated whole develop differently from all its seven regions. And we argue that these differences between historical regional patterns give vital hints on how SDGs can be achieved within Earth’s safe operating space – and how a stationary-state economy could be realized. 

One of the current challenges of human society lies in navigating the safe operating space defined by the planetary boundaries while reaching the aspirational Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is not a challenge that can be tackled everywhere in the same way. It is thus vital to ground the pursuit of the SDGs in locally prevalent worldviews and reflect specific contexts in developing coherent pathways. In addressing the need to couple global concerns with local aspirations and conditions, this paper introduces a stakeholder-based approach for visioning and exploring sustainable development pathways to meet the SDGs, inclusive of marginalized voices and facilitating context-sensitive exploration of alternative futures. The approach builds on but departs from the Three Horizons framework, a participatory approach developed for groups to think about transformative change. We present the benefits and challenges of the adapted approach in relation to an illustrative case study, the 2018 African Dialogue on The World In 2050, deliberating future pathways for agriculture and food systems in Africa. The key contribution of the paper is twofold. First, we detail the premises and steps of the Three Horizons for the SDGs (3H4SDG) approach. Second, we summarize the results of a pilot application of the approach - four alternative pathways for how food systems and agriculture can contribute to meeting the SDGs in Sub-Saharan Africa, integrated with the worldviews entangled in the narratives of the participating stakeholders. We conclude that participatory approaches grounded in systems thinking represent a promising way to link local aspirations with global goals.