Sustainable Development Goals must measure social cohesion
In this Impact, Kristoffer Nilaus Tarp argues that fragile and conflict-affected states will benefit more from the Sustainable Development Goals if they adopt the New Deal’s focus on the social contract between and within state and society.
Fragile and conflict-affected states have struggled to ensure satisfactory progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. As a consequence, the New Deal was developed through the forum of the International Dialogue for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding and advocated by the g7+ group of fragile and conflict-affected countries.
While the proposed SDG indicators cover the majority of PSG indicators, a few critical omissions threaten to make the SDGs less relevant for people living in fragile and conflict-affected states. The authors therefore argue that indicators assessing people’s confidence in security and justice institutions must become more explicit and articulate to capture trends in the “social contract” between the state and its people. Indicators assessing social cohesion among individuals and groups must also be reinforced as a measurement of capacities to prevent, contain and deescalate conflict.
