LIST OF PANELS

Agenda 2030 is not a blueprint for policy implementation that guides countries on their way forwards the Sustainable Development Goals. Rather it acts as an umbrella for policy formation and implementation that must be adjusted to local conditions across overlapping levels of governance. Therefore, the capacity of policy actors to produce the required changes will largely depend on the characteristics of existing institutions and the political, economic, and cultural conditions that surround national, regional, and international initiatives for reform. The current political scenario in many countries of the Global South is highly complex, and institutional reforms are likely to show both convergence and divergence across countries. This diversity becomes a rich context to produce comparative studies of the influence of political instability on institutional development.

The Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015 by the member states of the United Nations to establish a common framework for sustainable development. For developing countries, achieving the SDGs presents some particular challenges. One of the most easily identifiable is the relative instability of their political systems, but also their deep dependency on foreign investments and technologies, as well as their poorly structured administrative systems. Some countries in the Global South have initiated the process of adjusting their governance structures to work towards the SDGs. Although it is too early to assess the effectiveness of these institutions, it is crucial to understand the conditions under which new institutional designs emerge, as well as their main characteristics vis-à-vis existing institutions.

In this workshop, we will survey recent institutional developments in the Global South to identify the main areas where institutional change is occurring and the conditions that so far allow for or impede progress. We are particularly interested in discussing empirical contributions that unveil the difficulties of translating the goals and targets of Agenda 2030 into new institutional arrangements as well as those that assess the effects of COVID19 in the adoption and implementation of Agenda 2030.