The FRAME project co-creates a broadly-supported, locally-endorsed research agenda that aims to guide future research for Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. For that, we seek to understand which interactions between SDGs are most important to Sub-Saharan Africans.
Background
This project is conducted as part of The Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA). This research agenda is the outcome of an inclusive participatory process that engages both Dutch citizens and scientists. During this agenda-setting process, citizens and scientists decided to create a Route (#23) which focuses on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and examines the central question: "How can we enhance inclusive global development and increase global well-being in a sustainable manner?"
We will explore topics like whether the empowerment of women (SDG 5) enhances their diets and the diets of their children (SDG 2), and how achieving higher education (SDG 4) may mean more poverty now, but less poverty in the future (SDG 1).
Objectives and approach
The specific development challenges described in Route 23 are most poignant to low and middle income countries. The FRAME project, therefore, aims to realise a research agenda that truly aligns with the needs of people living in the low and middle income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by co-creating research priorities with local stakeholders. This will make subsequent research into SDG interactions more concrete, relevant and actionable for local African policy makers.
Route 23 emphasises research that adopts a systems perspective, specifically exploring interactions between interrelated SDGs within low and middle income countries. In this way, interactions between the goals are examined, both positive interactions (synergies) and negative interactions (trade-offs).
Examples of synergies are:
- Improving industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9) can have a positive impact on reducing poverty (SDG 1)
- Enhancing the quality of education (SDG 4) can promote gender equality (SDG 5)
- Working towards ending hunger by improving food security (SDG 2) can improve good health and well-being (SDG3)
Examples of trade-offs are:
- Working towards no hunger by improving food security (SDG 2) can result in a decrease in biodiversity/harm to life on land (SDG 15)
- Promoting decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) can lead to adverse effects on life on land (SDG 15)
- Advancing sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11) can lead to reduced attention to climate action (SDG 13)
The agenda-setting process will be based on the Dialogue Model (Abma & Broerse, 2010), which builds on the principles of active engagement of stakeholders, explicit inclusion of experiential knowledge and dialogue between stakeholders. The process will be conducted in several phases including exploration, consultation, collaboration, prioritisation, programming and implementation.