SUM4501 – Achieving the SDGs: Global Goals and National Interests
Course description
Course content
This course will introduce students to national and international policies related to the 2030 Agenda and its 17 accompanying Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although there is growing awareness about the SDGs, the emerging consensus in most academic and policy discussions is that the pace of action is slow and that far too many people of the world continue to be excluded from the development process. This course will discuss the contested nature of the sustainable development discourse, and highlight core features of the 2030 Agenda, including the underlying theory of change. What is the added value of international goal-setting, and how does the international community justify the SDGs? Are the SDGs merely a new framework to situate the development discourse?
The lectures will identify and discuss the effectiveness of global and national institutional arrangements for achieving the SDGs as well as the availability of development finance. With a focus on Malawi, India, and China – where the Oslo SDG Initiative has undertaken recent research – the course will highlight how and to what extent the global agenda has been operationalized at national and local levels. The course will also highlight a set of promising practices, as well as identify the most critical challenges ahead, including the need for a greater focus on addressing the politics of the sustainable development agenda.
Learning outcome
Students will:
- Be well acquainted with the major theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of sustainable development
- Learn how to better understand what works, how and why in relation to global and national interventions aimed at promoting sustainable development
- Gain insight into the explicit role of politics in policies aimed at achieving sustainable development
- Undertake comparative studies of sustainable development and SDG implementation in differing contexts
Admission
You may apply to be a guest student at SUM. Please follow these instructions.
Prerequisites
Formal prerequisite knowledge
A bachelor’s degree.
Recommended previous knowledge
Specialization equivalent to at least 80 ECTS within subjects from the humanities or social sciences, sustainable development, or equivalent relevant subjects.