“Measuring governance to achieve Sustainable Development: promises and challenge”

The SDGs place strong emphasis on “good governance” to achieve both peace and security for sustainable development. They explicitly state that “Sustainable development cannot be realized without peace and security; and peace and security will be at risk without sustainable development”(United Nations 2015 point 35). The 2030 Development Agenda also recognizes the need to “build peaceful, just and inclusive societies that provide equal access to justice and that are based on respect for human rights (including the right to development), on effective rule of law and good governance at all levels and on transparent, effective and accountable institutions”(United Nations 2015 point 35). The SDGs underline this governance-security nexus based on the insight that “negative costs of ineffective governance in terms of the loss of human lives, stunted human development, environmental degradation, and waste of financial and organizational resources are enormous” (Joshi et al. 2015, p. 286). Accordingly, pursuing the SDGs requires the upscaling and improvement of governance structures and systems within and across countries to guarantee development that is just, inclusive, and sustainable. Hand in hand with such systemic upscaling goes the need to assess and monitor a range of governance dimensions, including institutional quality and state capacity, across countries and over time.