Southern Voice joined forces with the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) and the German Development Institute (DIE) for two events in September 2018 about Policy Coherence. A workshop and conference took place at ECDPM in Maastricht, the Netherlands, and Brussels, Belgium.

Promoting policy coherence has come of age with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The idea that policies in different sectors should not undermine each other, but rather work in synergy, has become common sense. Although the notion of policy coherence is straightforward, it has been difficult to put it in practice, let alone achieve measurable results.

Against this backdrop, a coalition of think tanks from different regions of the world is preparing a joint research project. The aim is to better understand why and how policymakers in different countries are promoting mutually supportive policies to pursue sustainable development objectives.

Objectives of the workshop were:

  1. Share views and practical experiences relating to policy coherence in the context of sustainable development processes, and discuss aspirations regarding a potential project;
  2. Discuss and elaborate common research methodologies to characterise policy coherence, analyse the conditions enabling it to materialise, and assess it;
  3. Identify critical, multi-sectoral policy challenges and policy management issues that the project can focus on, and the roles think tanks could play in promoting policy coherence in different contexts.

A detailed report about the events will follow in October 2018 and will be published on southernvoice.org.