Global goalsetting as a policy response: The impact of the Sustainable Development Goals on International Organizations

Global governance is highly fragmented, characterized by tens of thousands of international organizations, treaties and regimes with specialized mandates. By agreeing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the United Nations General Assembly set 17 global development priorities up to 2030. Ideally, governing through goals might (re-)direct and steer the activities of international organizations along the lines of these priorities. As implementing entities, international organizations can directly influence goal-attainment. As building blocks of the global governance system, they can also steer other actors towards the goals. But the exact effects of the 17 global goals on international organizations are unclear. This thesis therefore investigates how international organizations are impacted by the SDGs. I conducted four in-depth, primarily qualitative case studies, relying on 91 interviews, 374 key documents and numerous other materials, such as webpages and evaluation reports. Each case focuses on and thereby adds knowledge about a different (set of) international organization(s) and a different potential manifestation of impact. I look at impact as changes in organizational behavior, defined through a range of organizational outputs, including (novel) initiatives, policy changes and institutional adjustments. The cases focus on i) intra-organizational change, ii) inter-institutional coordination, iii) (novel) external steering activities and iv) changes in efforts to further institutionalize work. I find that behavioral change is most clearly observed in the external relations of international organizations. International organizations take on novel external steering activities vis-a-vis third parties, establish new coordination initiatives, and are helped in their efforts to strengthen institutionalization. However, I question if this type of activity, thus far, has realized any material impact, for example by increasing efficiency, reducing fragmentation or resolving policy incoherence. I find that intra-organizational behavior does not seem to have changed much due to the SDGs. International organizations can and do utilize the SDG processes strategically, furthering their own interests and claiming alignment without making far-fetching adjustments to their ongoing work. I posit that the key reason for this lack of change is that beyond the setting of 17 goals, little has changed in the overall incentive structure for international organizations. It is therefore unrealistic even to expect transformative action. Furthermore, what transformative action would even entail has never been clearly defined. To utilize the potential of international organizations to realize the priorities of the SDGs, we need more fundamental changes to the environment in which international organizations operate, and a more thorough elaboration of the requirements for organizational alignment, including efforts that should be (de-)prioritized to implement the SDGs.