Leaders, followers and the role of policy transfer: Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals at the Dutch local level

Abstract

Local implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals is a good example of how internationalisation influences the local level. Dutch municipalities contribute to achieving the SDGs by carrying out all kinds of activities and actions. Most of these activities are focused on the own municipality. Local implementation of the Global Goals happens on a voluntary basis. Since it is up to local governments to give substance to the SDGs, they look at each other to get information and learn from each other how they can integrate the worldwide sustainability agenda. In practice, the SDGs are connected with existing municipal policies in line with local priorities and strategies. Municipalities are aware of the specific contexts in which they operate and compare their situations with each other. That is why municipalities do not only look at leading municipalities based on the perceptions they have of the latter’s SDG policy performance, but also look at municipalities that are more or less the same, i.e. counterparts that have a similar profile and SDG approach, and face similar challenges in implementing the Global Goals. Because municipalities take into account the specific local conditions, learning rather than imitation is the underlying mechanism of policy transfer processes with respect to the SDGs. Also, the SDGs are often not seen as a way to profile the municipality. Adopting to the SDGs through mutual learning does not really happen, however, due to the limited contact between municipalities and factors that influence the local governance context in which implementation of the SDGs should take place. In fact, the degree of more or less learning depends on many other factors that impact the final step of policy change, i.e. the implementation of the SDGs. Politics particularly plays a role in all of this. Some factors may negatively influence learning processes, such as institutional capacity, ideology and changes in government, while others are the cause why policy change takes place. Policy change through policy transfer is therefore unlikely to happen.