Metagovernance for Sustainability A Framework for Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development Series

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were adopted by the United Nations in September 2015 are universally applicable in all 193 UN Member States and connect the big challenges of our time, such as hunger and poverty, climate change, health in an urbanised environment, sustainable energy, mobility, economic development and environmental degradation. Sustainability has the characteristics of a ?wicked problem?, for which there are no one-size-fits-all solutions.

This book tests the hypothesis that the implementation of sustainable development, and in particular the 2015 SDGs, requires tailor-made metagovernance or ?governance of governance?. This is necessary to develop effective governance and high quality and inclusive public administration and to foster policy and institutional coherence to support implementing the SDGs. Based on the growing literature on governance and metagovernance, and taking into account the specificities of societal factors such as different values and traditions in different countries, the book presents a framework for the design and management of SDG implementation. It shows how hierarchical, network and market governance styles can be combined and how governance failure can be prevented or dealt with. The book presents an overview of fifty ?shades of governance? which differ for each governance style, and a sketch of a concrete method to apply sustainability metagovernance.

Metagovernance for Sustainability is relevant to academic and practitioner fields across many disciplines and problem areas. It will be of particular interest to scholars, students and policy-makers studying Sustainable Development, Governance and Metagovernance, Public Management and Capacity Building.

Part 1. What is and for what governance? 1. Introduction: The problem with sustainability governance. 2. Three governance styles and their hybrids. 3. Governance failures and their causes. 4. Introducing metagovernance: governance of governance. Part 2. Features of metagovernance. 5. Fifty Shades of Governance: A toolbox. 6. How values, traditions and geography shape the feasibility of governance approaches. 7. Mind-sets and mental silos: Rise and fall of simple switches. Part 3. Metagovernance for Sustainability. 8. Metagovernance challenges for the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. 9. Metagovernance: sketching a method. 10. Metagovernance, public sector reform, coherence promotion and capacity building. 11. Conclusions: Metagovernance as framework for SDG implementation

Louis Meuleman is member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA)(2018-2021), and works at the European Commission in Brussels as coordinator of the Environmental Implementation Review and the greening of the ‘European Semester.’ He is affiliated with the universities of Leuven (Belgium), Massachusetts Boston (USA) and Wageningen (the Netherlands).