The Impact of External Shocks on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Linking the COVID-19 Pandemic to SDG Implementation at the Local Government Level

Abstract

Using data from a survey we conducted in collaboration with the Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (VVSG), this article sought to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the implementation of SDGs by Flemish local governments (cities and municipalities). Identifying such effects has usually been conducted on individuals and at a macro level and not at the organization and local government level. By using a counterfactual approach, we were able to disentangle various COVID-19 effects over time and learn how systems at the local level react to external shocks. The approach allowed us to single out the effects of the pandemic at the organizational level while looking into three distinct periods: before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and in its aftermath. Results showed that the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the Flemish public sector’s implementation of SDGs at the local level. At the same time, COVID-19 allowed local public institutions to accelerate the implementation of a few SDGs (e.g., SDG1, SDG3) and to postpone a few SDG-related activities which would be resumed once the pandemic is ‘over’. COVID-19 is not only a challenge; it acts as a wake-up call and an opportunity to commit more towards the implementation of (certain) SDGs.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted social, economic, and environmental systems worldwide, slowing down and reversing the progress made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [1]. While some SDGs have been directly and hugely impacted, others have been indirectly affected by the global pandemic emergency [2,3]. At some point, the pandemic brought the advancement of Agenda 2030 to a standstill and, as a result, has put serious doubt on the achievement of SDGs [4]. Most of the existing research examines the effects of COVID-19 on SDGs at an individual level [5], while other studies focus on a macro level [6]. According to the Crisis in Context Theory (CCT), the way individuals react to external shocks is different from the reactions of the system, as both entities form different layers in a crisis model [7]. While it is important to analyze each layer involved in the crisis, there is little evidence on how the COVID-19 pandemic has stalled the implementation of the SDGs at the organizational level and how organizations reacted to the pandemic. We filled this gap in the literature by examining whether and to what extent COVID-19 has affected local governments’ SDG implementation.

A growing body of research has already explored the relationship between COVID-19 and SDGs [8,9,10]. While some studies suggest that COVID-19 measures have brought a few positive impacts on the environment, for example, by reducing air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions [11,12], other research gives a harsh judgment on the impact of COVID-19 on SDGs by claiming that COVID-19 has torn to shreds sustained economic growth and globalization, the two big assumptions on which SDGs’ success were built [8]. Specifically, following the shrinking of the global economy, different SDGs were negatively affected [3,5]. However, since most of these studies focused their main attention on how individuals were affected by COVID-19, we based our analysis on organizations. Building on earlier insights, we embraced a novel perspective in our research by investigating how the local public sector was hindered by COVID-19 in its efforts to implement SDGs. This approach allows us to gain a deeper understanding of how local public institutions may not only have been prevented from pursuing their efforts to achieve the Agenda 2030 but are also likely to have shifted their priorities to respond to the challenges presented to them by the pandemic, thereby accelerating on some SDGs. We examined how and to what extent public organizations (institutions) at the local level adjusted their strategies to respond to the crisis. During global shocks, organizations react differently, and hence it makes sense to investigate organizational behaviors when faced with crises.

Furthermore, research has pointed out that COVID-19 delayed the achievement of some SDGs. For instance, it reversed approximately a decade in the world’s progress in reducing poverty [13,14,15]. It also slowed down the progress made in the area of health [5]. This further warrants our focus on the impact of COVID-19 on SDGs and how institutions reacted to the crisis by shifting priorities. A theory suggests that “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around” [16] (p. 7). Faced with the pandemic, local governments were forced to respond within their capacity and were sometimes obliged to shift priorities away from the usual actions. Because of their limited exploration of the efforts of the public sector in achieving SDGs, earlier studies failed to appreciate how public institutions adapted their strategies and how SDG tools helped them to navigate through the pandemic without abandoning their efforts and engagement with SDG implementation. The consequences of COVID-19 on SDGs called organizations into action for prompt measures [3]. Building further on these insights, our study showed that some organizations ceased the ‘opportunity’ offered by the COVID-19 crisis to accelerate their implementation of a number of SDGs and were building on this momentum in the aftermath of the pandemic. Consequently, we aimed to gain a better understanding of the relationship between the two variables by analyzing how local governments’ implementations of SDGs were hindered or encouraged by COVID-19. To understand governmental institutions’ SDG implementation efforts and activities, we partly based our analysis on the SDG compass, which is a tool that different organizations utilize to apply SDGs at their levels. Meanwhile, there is little research on public institutions, especially at the local level vis-à-vis COVID-19 and SDGs, despite this being a topical issue in public administration.

Relying on data from a survey we developed and conducted in July 2021 in collaboration with the VVSG (the Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities), we investigated how Flemish public organizations’ SDG implementation activities and efforts were hampered by COVID-19. This provided us a better picture of how much the implementation of some SDGs was put on hold to focus on more urgent SDGs. We obtained insights on how local public institutions in Flanders (region that is part of the federal state of Belgium and has its own assigned powers, which were granted by the federal constitution. Flanders exercises these powers (e.g., cultural matters, welfare, education, economic matters, etc.) autonomously according to the principle of federal loyalty. Flanders has five provinces and 300 cities and municipalities with jurisdiction over a given territory. These local governments are autonomous on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are part of the state (coadministration). These administrations also have an open mandate, which means, among other things, that they can take their own initiative in many matters and levy their own taxes. For these reasons, mandataries are also directly elected at this level. Municipal powers are very broad and include everything related to the “municipal interest,” in other words, the collective needs of residents. In theory, a city/municipality in Flanders can do anything as long as it is not prohibited. Jurisdiction includes public works, social assistance, law enforcement, housing, education, etc.) may have shifted priorities to respond better to the crisis and may have come out of the crisis more equipped to pursue efforts to achieve the Agenda 2030.

The remainder of this article is organized as follows. In Section 1, we discuss the literature regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SDGs and elaborate on subsequent hypotheses. Building on the literature, we develop our argument on whether and to what degree COVID-19 impacts SDG implementation in the public sector at the local level. In Section 2, we show how data were collected and analyzed, while in Section 3, the results are discussed and analyzed. Finally, Section 4 concludes with a discussion and outlines possibilities for future research on the themes discussed in the paper.

2. Literature Review and Hypotheses

Although SDGs are a recent phenomenon, there is a growing body of research developed on the impact of COVID-19 on SDGs [17]. The pandemic is likely to have threatened SDG achievement scheduled in 2030 [18]. The SDG implementation process is a key step because the Agenda 2030 framework may lead to different sustainability outcomes, depending on how it is implemented by the diverse set of competent agents [19,20,21]. Mazmanian and Sabatier [22] (p. 20) defined implementation as “the carrying out of a basic policy decision, usually incorporated in a statute but which can also take the form of important executive orders”. As a policy decision, SDGs identify the problem(s) to be addressed, stipulate the objective(s) to be pursued, and structure the implementation process. We regarded SDGs as a universal project to end poverty, protect the planet, and improve the lives and livelihoods of everyone everywhere [23].

Since the adoption of SDGs in 2015, private and public institutions at different levels have been encouraged to join hands in implementing SDGs. Evaluating countries’ trajectory, macro-level research has classified nations into five categories in light of their SDG implementation process: “decreasing” (country score is moving away from SDG achievement), “stagnating” (country score remains stagnant or is improving at a rate below 50% of what is needed for SDG achievement by 2030), “moderately increasing” (country score is increasing at a rate above 50% but below the rate needed for SDG achievement by 2030), “on track” (score is improving at the rate needed for SDG achievement by 2030), “maintaining goal achievement” (country score is on the level and remains at or above SDG achievement) [24]. We built on these insights to check the trajectory of the SDG implementation process among public organizations at the local level that form an important part of the national effort. We believe that local governments are the key implementers of policy decisions and produce the outcomes of those decisions in the governance process. It is at this level that all actions take place [25], and hence we find it important to study the local level.

3. Determining the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on SDG Implementation

3.1. The Slowdown Effect: COVID-19 Slowed down Organizations’ SDG Implementation in General

Since their adoption in 2015, many SDGs (e.g., economic growth, education for all, and poverty reduction) have experienced relative progress. The spread of COVID-19 seems to have changed the scenario. Based on the United Nations report [26], Fallah Shayan et al. [5] demonstrated how COVID-19 had dramatically disrupted the decreasing number of poor people. Due to the worldwide disruption of the economy and food supply chain, more people have suffered from malnutrition. Similarly, following school closures during lockdowns, so many students did not have basic equipment or access to attend online schools and may have fallen behind [5]. In a particular way, the COVID-19 pandemic is a major economic shock that has already increased economic insecurity, particularly for less educated people [27,28]. The economic insecurity was translated into job-related disruptions, including losing a job, a reduction in working hours, or a fall in income for millions of people [29].

While some studies investigate the pandemic’s social, economic, and environmental impacts separately or only focus on a few SDGs [30,31,32,33,34], other studies focus on all 17 goals, thereby giving a holistic picture [5,35]. In addition, most of these studies focus their studies on how COVID-19 has an effect on individuals. These studies maintain that the economic crisis that followed the pandemic is estimated to have flung 400 million people below the $1.90 poverty line [14,15], while the number of people who are likely to face acute food shortages highly increased during the pandemic [36].

Although there is a lot of research on how COVID-19 affects the individual in relation to SDGs, comprehensive studies on the pandemic’s impacts (both negative and positive) are still lacking in the context of impacts on organizations. Theories show that there is more than a surface layer of impact to every crisis. Besides individuals being affected, systems, subsystems, and stakeholders get affected [7]. Accordingly, our analysis concentrated on the organizational level rather than the individual level. Although we acknowledged that SDGs are generally meant to serve the well-being of individuals, organizations play a key role in SDG achievement through their investment in SDGs and in policy implementation that is specific to SDGs [37]. The success or the failure of SDGs, for that matter, is mainly dependent on the way different institutions manage to invest time, energy, and money in the SDG project bearing in mind the effects of external environmental factors (i.e., economic crisis, COVID-19). Moreover, the concrete realization of SDGs is impeded by how they are implemented by a diverse set of competent agents [23]. Our intention was not to address the reciprocal effects of crises on individuals and organizations but specifically on how local public organizations are affected. Organizations also play a key role in the realization of Agenda 2030 through various SDG implementation activities [38]. For example, the city of Antwerp has taken different initiatives to contribute to protecting the environment. One of the initiatives is called “Climate Streets” and has seen the city residents work hand in hand with local teams to green up the streets with more plants and natural features. This initiative that began in 2017 is about using permeable materials and rainwater recovery to cope with flooding and greenery to cope with heat stress during hot summers that have become more of a reality in recent years [39]. Literature shows that the public sector is specifically called upon to implement different policy instruments so as to ensure wide access to public services, adopt policies and strategies to achieve certain SDGs such as gender equality (SDG5) and job creation and entrepreneurship (SDG8), and invest resources in different instrumental areas, such as in research and innovation (SDG9) and multisector partnerships (SDG17) [40]. Hörisch [18] maintains that the pandemic has been found to severely threaten the achievement of the SDGs by shifting attention away from the many prior challenges of sustainable development.

Prior research shows that the pandemic has had different degrees or types of impact on SDG implementation. It has negatively impacted most SDGs in the short term. Particularly, the targets of SDG1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13 have and will continue to have weakly to moderately negative impacts or what some scholars term restricting impacts. Although most of these impacts are likely to be short-term, these impacts add new challenges in achieving those SDGs by 2030 [34]. According to the organizational resilience theory [41] and organizational improvisation theory [42], organizations are naturally endowed with resilience to external shocks and can adapt to a fast-changing environment, but organizations adapt differently depending on various factors (i.e., the strength of employees, the strength of adaptive models already in place, substantial investment during normal times). COVID-19 appeared to be too strong for a number of organizations because they did not have mechanisms in place to adapt and to be resilient to external shocks and hence saw their implementation activities slow down. Simultaneously, COVID-19 has exposed the fragility of the 2030 Agenda, especially where organizations have a role to play. If COVID-19 has slowed the SDG project further, we expect that the pandemic will have some negative impacts on the SDGs at the organizational level by slowing down local government’s SDG implementation. Therefore, we hypothesized that:

Hypothesis 1 (H1).

Local governments’ implementation of the SDGs significantly slowed down due to the COVID-19 crisis.

3.2. The Prioritization and Acceleration Effect: COVID-19 Led Organizations to Prioritize Some SDGs and to Accelerate Their Organizational Implementation

Sunny et al. [34] contended that a few targets of SDG2, 3, 6, and 11 could have benefited from the positive impacts of the pandemic. These mini-impacts are called weakly promoting impacts. Others call these rare effect opportunities [8]. Even though the pandemic has had devastating impacts on some SDGs, surprisingly, other SDGs have benefitted from the crisis. For instance, COVID-19 provided hope in opportunities for facilitating the achievement of SDG13 (climate action). COVID-19 measures taken by governments in the fight against COVID-19 (i.e., lockdowns) have also brought a few positive impacts on the environment by, for example, reducing air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions [11,12].

The pandemic has also opened a short-lived and narrow window of opportunities for sustainable transformation. The transformative opportunities consist of lessons learned for planning and actions, socio-economic recovery plans, the use of information and communication technologies and the digital economy, reverse migration and “brain gain,” and local governments’ exercising authorities [34]. Furthermore, although the pandemic will have restricting impacts on most SDGs in the short term, these restricting impacts may subside in the medium and long term and may even result in some promoting impacts. These promoting impacts are expected first of all because some countries would catch up with the ongoing progress in achieving the SDGs and utilize the generated transformative opportunities once the pandemic is under control [34]. Secondly, transformative opportunities are expected because SDGs are interconnected and interlinked. This means that “implementing the 2030 Agenda will bring about synergies—i.e., situations in which achievements on one goal contribute towards progress on other goals” [43] (p. 6).

Organization theories and crisis theories show that institutions and humanity learn from the crisis and adopt more effective measures. The financial crisis of 2007–2008 has increased awareness about the repercussions that weak corporate governance and risk management practices can have on financial markets and the world’s economy. The challenges entailed in the climate change process and the depletion of natural resources (as well as air and water pollution and biodiversity loss) have increased demand for more responsible behavior and coordination at the global level from both public and private economic organizations [3]. As a consequence, many organizations have put efforts into socially responsible investment (SRI). Adopting SRI is one way to reduce the negative impact on society as a whole, thereby making changes and contributing to the ills that have been affecting human lives for many years and accelerating on SDG project [37]. For organizations, prioritization is recognized in academic and practitioner literature as a crucial initial step, as it enables focusing on a reduced set of priorities, thus making SDG implementation more effective and manageable [40]. The pandemic and its consequences resulted in an increased focus on healthcare systems, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the digital economy [34]. At the local level, the increased focus is likely to be in line with the indicators for European cities to assess and monitor the UN SDGs. For instance, many cities in Flanders sensitized residents on the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination and provided their halls to facilitate vaccinations, and invested more money to help in the vaccination campaign. If a number of SDGs benefited from global shocks and crises and got prioritized, we expected that in their response to the pandemic and its consequences, the public sector would witness a certain degree of acceleration in its implementation in certain SDG areas. Therefore, our next hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 2 (H2).

Due to COVID-19, some SDGs were prioritized, and consequently, local governments’ implementation of these SDGs got accelerated.

3.3. The Postponement Effect: During COVID-19, Organizations Postponed Some SDG Implementation-Related Activities

Following the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on SDGs and the apparent impossibility of reaching the Agenda 2030, various researchers, as well as practitioners, have called on the UN to rethink the world’s sustainable development strategy. For instance, following the slowdown of progress on the SDGs due to COVID-19, Naidoo and Fisher [8] argued that the world needs to define priorities better and probably focus on a few broad strategic goals rather than all 17 SDGs. A Nature editorial went further to proclaim that it is time to revise SDGs in order to make the goals more achievable [44]. Those who called for revision were aware that it is not just the COVID-19 crisis that made SDGs beyond our reach. The SDG project was all along slow and impossible to achieve. Reports on the first phase of the SDG agenda (2015–2020) showed unequivocally that progress toward achieving the SDGs had been slow in all parts of the world prior to the COVID-19 crisis [24,26,45]. However, this did not remove the fact that the advent of COVID-19 worsened the situation.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic affected the planet, the United Nations raised the stakes for SDGs by viewing it as vital for COVID-19 recovery, which leads to greener, more inclusive economies and stronger, more resilient societies [45]. There is a strong conviction that achieving the SDGs would bring about a safer, more stable world with fewer natural and manmade hazards, thus lowering the likelihood of future crises occurring [10]. Backsliding on the progress already made on the SDGs not only imperils prospects for eradicating basic deprivations but also reduces resilience to other shocks in the future, especially for those least able to cope. Maintaining the progress already made must continue to be a priority during the crisis response and beyond—supporting those at immediate risk of poverty, hunger, or disease while facilitating their safe return to work and education and their access to healthcare [46].

According to the second step of the SDG compass [47], organizations are encouraged to determine their priorities, relying on an assessment of their positive-and-negative, current-and-potential impacts on SDGs across their value chains. Due to the impact that COVID-19 had on the organization, the latter may have had to postpone some activities. It is expected that while institutions put more focus on maintaining some SDG activities, they willingly or unwillingly make a choice to postpone other activities, hoping to resume them once the crisis is behind them. We, therefore, hypothesized that:

Hypothesis 3 (H3).

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, local governments postponed certain SDG implementation activities.

4. Materials and Methods

4.1. Sample and Procedures

The population for this study consisted of all 300 Flemish cities and municipalities. All of them were given the opportunity to participate voluntarily in an online Qualtrics survey, drafted in Dutch and held in July 2021, to fully grasp the potential COVID-19 pandemic effects. Through the Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (VVSG), respondents were mailed the link to this self-administered questionnaire with an accompanying cover letter, and this mail was directed primarily to sustainability or environmental staff. The surveys were thus completed by a civil servant on behalf of each municipality/city. One of the cover letter’s key messages was that for one city/municipality, only one response was demanded, and this was verified using some control variables (type of city/municipality, province, number of citizens). To counteract possible common method bias, participants were further informed that their responses would remain anonymous and confidential [48]. In total, 220 participants completed the survey, but 90 were excluded from further analysis since it concerned partial (missing values) and some double participation. The final sample of complete responses thus comprised 130 unique cities and municipalities, resulting in a response rate of 43.3%. We also noted that cities and municipalities of all categories and all regions are included in the 130 unique ones, resulting in a representative sample.

The data retrieved from the survey were subsequently used to describe the status of the variable SDG implementation of Flemish cities and municipalities and to attempt to determine the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and the SDG implementation of cities/municipalities based on the hypotheses drawn up above. In order to do so, some of these data were statistically tested using SPSS 28.0.

4.2. Survey Design

This study was intended to provide some empirical evidence on the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and SDG implementation of individual organizations, more specifically, cities and municipalities. To investigate, the survey sections of interest for this article were: (1) an assessment of the status of the organizations’ SDG implementation (currently [the time the survey was completed], counterfactually [given the non-existence of COVID-19], and future), (2) an overview of SDG implementation activities (currently [the time the survey was completed], counterfactually [given the non-existence of COVID-19], and future), (3) an assessment of the direct impact of COVID-19 on the organizations’ SDG implementation (currently [the time the survey was completed], and in the future), and (4) an assessment of the direct impact of COVID-19 on the organization’s implementation of the individual SDGs. Participants were thus asked both directly and indirectly about the relationship between the variables COVID-19 and SDG implementation. To measure the variables, the following survey questions were used: “What do you consider to be the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the SDG Implementation of your city/municipality so far(1)/within a year(2)?” (answers: no, slowdown, acceleration), and “In your assessment, how far along is your city/municipality in implementing the SDGs currently(1)/had there been no COVID-19(2)/within a year(3)?” (answers: no SDG implementation, early stage, somewhat advanced, advanced, far advanced, complete SDG implementation). The survey acted thus also as a way to help cities and municipalities evaluate their past and present achievement of the SDGs in light of COVID-19 and to project themselves into the future.

To gain insights into SDG implementation activities of cities and municipalities, this paper made use of a model consisting of several steps, which appeared in both academic literature and practitioner guides for all types of organizations. This five-step model is also known as the SDG compass [47]. The SDG compass is a tool that was created to help institutions to implement SDGs in different states of their programs and strategies. The SDG compass guide is addressed to all governmental and non-governmental development actors who are looking for practical guidance on how to further mold their organization and programs to Agenda 2030 and the underlying principles [49]. Although there are many tools, we found the SDG compass to be easier to understand and apply by all local governments. The five steps are: understanding the SDGs, defining SDG priorities, setting SDG goals, integrating the SDGs, and reporting and communicating on the SDGs. These five steps of SDG implementation are well-known to practitioners and hence very recognizable to the participants of this survey. Unfortunately, we did not know exactly how many of the surveyed cities and municipalities actually used or even knew the SDG compass. However, we were confident that they were all familiar with the five-step model, especially since the Flemish government’s SDG manual for governmental organizations is inspired by the SDG compass and thus relies on the same five-step model [50]. Hence, to measure the variable, the following survey questions were used: “In your assessment, to what extent is your city/municipality implementing the SDGs? Please indicate the activities that your city/municipality is doing currently(1)/had there been no COVID-19(2)/within a year(3)?” (answers: no, understanding the SDGs, defining priorities, setting goals, integrating, reporting and communicating).

Since the SDG compass guide aims to provide practical and operational support to organizations in their efforts to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate their interventions in a way that respects and contributes to Agenda 2030 [49], we used it to evaluate how local governments were able to implement SDGs during COVID-19 and analyze how the very implementation could have been hindered. A few other studies used SDG tools to evaluate the organization’s engagement with SDGs or to provide new insights. Grainger-Brown and Malekpour [51] used different SDG tools (SDG compass, global reporting initiative, and the ‘SDG industry matrix’) in their review research of different strategic SDG tools. Muff, Kapalka, and Dyllick [52], in turn, enriched the SDG compass by introducing process know-how and content expertise in order to facilitate its application in the strategic processes of businesses. Such tools and frameworks are a way of aligning global goals to “micro” strategies [3].

5. Results

5.1. The Slowdown Effect

The respondents’ assessment of the status of the organizations’ SDG implementation (Figure 1) clearly indicated that at the moment of questioning, more than 90% of the Flemish cities and municipalities (90% of the sample) were already actively engaged in SDG implementation, with more than half being at an early stage of SDG implementation. Looking at the counterfactual numbers (given the non-existence of the COVID-19 crisis), the results cautiously showed that if COVID-19 had not existed, Flemish cities and municipalities would have been further ahead with their SDG implementation. In this hypothetical situation, more than half would already be at a somewhat advanced stage of SDG implementation or further. Looking at the future situation (within 1 year), the results showed a commitment of Flemish cities and municipalities to keep on engaging in SDG implementation. Most organizations indicated they would be at an advanced or even far advanced stage of SDG implementation one year later. To conclude, Figure 1 cautiously shows that COVID-19 has had a slowdown effect on the SDG implementation of Flemish cities and municipalities.

Table 1. Paired-Sample Statistics ‘SDG Implementation of Flemish cities/municipalities’.

	Mean	Standard Deviation	Standard Error Mean
SDG Implementation Currently (A)	2.41	0.851	0.075
SDG Implementation if COVID-19 had not been there (B)	2.65	0.895	0.079
SDG Implementation within 1 year (C)	3.06	1.002	0.088
Paired-sample correlations
		Correlation	Significance.
A & B		0.828	<0.001
Paired-samples test
	Paired differences
	Mean difference	t	Significance. (2-tailed)
A & B	−0.246	−5.457	<0.001
n = 130

shows the basic statistics of the SDG implementation of Flemish cities and municipalities in all three situations. The basic statistics also tentatively indicated that had it not been for COVID-19, Flemish cities and municipalities would have been further advanced in their SDG implementation (mean 2.65) than the current situation (mean 2.41). The numbers also showed the previously mentioned commitment of the organizations to keep on engaging in SDG implementation in the future (mean 3.06). The paired-sample t-test results showed that if COVID-19 had not been there, SDG implementation of Flemish cities and municipalities would have been 0.246 higher than the current situation. It was found that, since the significance value for change in SDG implementation is less than 0.05, the average hypothetical rise of 0.246 was not due to chance variation and could be attributed to the COVID-19 crisis. This indicated again that COVID-19 slowed down SDG implementation in Flemish cities and municipalities. Hence, H1 is supported, and there is a statistically significant difference between SDG implementation in the COVID-19 situation and in the hypothetical counterfactual situation (with no COVID-19).

Supplementary, the participants were also asked directly about the impact of COVID-19 on the SDG implementation of their organizations. Figure 2 shows that almost 50% of them (64 in total) indicated that in the current situation, COVID-19 caused a slowdown in the SDG implementation of their organizations. The main reasons given for this are: changing priorities, lack of manpower, and less interest. This reinforced the acceptance of H1: local governments’ implementation of SDGs significantly slowed down due to the COVID-19 crisis. It is worth noting that in addition, a few cities and municipalities (five in total) also indicated that the COVID-19 crisis had had just the opposite effect on the SDG implementation and that they have shifted up a gear (seemed to have accelerated). Although this concerned an absolute minority (less than 4%), we might note that for these cities and municipalities, COVID-19 could also have created an opportunity for them to accelerate the implementation of SDGs.

Our study revealed that almost 50% of cities and municipalities indicated that COVID-19 slowed down organizations’ SDG implementation and that this slowdown was significant. Our findings are in line with earlier studies. Shula et al. [4] concluded that the unusual situation created by COVID-19 negatively influenced the commitment to SDGs and undermined the general approach toward suitability by slowing down the process toward achieving the 17 SDGs and changing the trajectory of development. In particular, those SDGs that depend on globalization and economic growth are mostly affected. Specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic poses a severe threat to socio-economic SDGs, such as SDG1 (no poverty) or SDG8 (decent work and economic growth) [18]. There is a lot of probability that what happens at an organizational level spills over and has consequences on individuals, as system theories suggest. Earlier studies found that COVID-19 reversed years of worldwide health progress. There has been a decline in human life expectancy. The coronavirus has also disrupted ongoing health improvements, such as newborn and child death prevention, non-communicable disease treatments, communicable disease detection, mental health, and equal healthcare. Furthermore, infected people are at risk of death, long-term disabilities, lung and heart damage, and antibacterial resistance as a result of the virus [5]. Other studies showed that even before the pandemic, progress toward achieving the SDGs had been too slow [10].

We also found that more than half of the cities and municipalities that experienced a slowdown in the SDG process due to the COVID-19 crisis indicated that they were planning to evolve toward acceleration and foresaw no impact on their SDG implementation once COVID-19 was over (Figure 3). In fact, local governments hoped to further strengthen the commitment toward SDGs even after COVID-19. However, we found that the SDG implementation, in general, did not seem to accelerate during the crisis (only for a small minority). The crisis mainly acted as a wake-up call that led some organizations to accelerate their commitment once the crisis was over. COVID-19 can thus act as a threat to SDG implementation but also as an opportunity. This is in line with other research, which states that the crisis can be used as an opportunity to strengthen the commitment to the Agenda 2030 [4]. Pan and Zhang [53] (p. 1), in turn, concluded that the “pandemic presents an excellent opportunity for the human family to act in solidarity and turn this crisis into an impetus to achieve the UN SDGs”.

5.2. The Prioritization and Acceleration Effect

Zooming in on the separate SDGs for a moment, it appeared that SDG3 (good health and well-being), SDG1 (no poverty), SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities), and SDG4 (quality education) were already high on the agenda of Flemish cities and municipalities in July 2021. At the time of the survey, the cities and municipalities indicated a particular engagement with the above-mentioned SDGs in respective order. We also asked the question of which of the SDGs the engagement of the city or municipality changed due to the COVID-19 crisis (

Table 2. COVID-19 impact on individual SDG engagement.

	Reduced Engagement		No Change		Increased Engagement
	Number	% of Total	Number	% of Total	Number	% of Total
SDG1	2	1.79%	50	44.64%	60	53.57%
SDG2	3	2.70%	74	66.67%	34	30.63%
SDG3	3	2.68%	43	38.39%	66	58.93%
SDG4	7	6.36%	77	70.00%	26	23.64%
SDG5	4	3.67%	99	90.83%	6	5.50%
SDG6	4	3.67%	95	87.16%	10	9.17%
SDG7	9	8.11%	88	79.28%	14	12.61%
SDG8	5	4.50%	82	73.87%	24	21.62%
SDG9	7	6.48%	87	80.56%	14	12.96%
SDG10	1	0.90%	83	74.77%	27	24.32%
SDG11	6	5.36%	84	75.00%	22	19.64%
SDG12	8	7.14%	85	75.89%	19	16.96%
SDG13	7	6.25%	86	76.79%	19	16.96%
SDG14	6	5.45%	98	89.09%	6	5.45%
SDG15	4	3.64%	93	84.55%	13	11.82%
SDG16	6	5.50%	84	77.06%	19	17.43%
SDG17	9	8.18%	80	72.73%	21	19.09%

). SDG3 (good health and well-being) again scored very high. Just under 60% of the cities and municipalities indicated an increased engagement with this SDG because of the COVID-19 crisis. SDG1 (no poverty) again scored high and was also an outlier. Just under 55% of the cities and municipalities indicated that the engagement with this SDG had increased due to COVID-19. Finally, we asked which SDGs the cities and municipalities expect to engage in within a year. The results from this were almost identical to the results of the current situation mentioned above. SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG1 (no poverty) again scored particularly high. SDG3 (good health and well-being) also scored high here. However, suddenly, SDG7 (affordable and sustainable energy) and SDG13 (climate action) moved up in the score, so these SDGs appeared to be becoming increasingly important for cities and municipalities.

In part, these specific results are within a pattern of expectation. COVID-19 has created new societal challenges and changed priorities for a lot of societal actors. For instance, the primary impact the virus had was obviously on the health of humans and consequently on the health system, resulting in overcrowded hospitals and not fully sufficient medical treatments [3]. With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting in early 2020, cities and municipalities worldwide were faced with new challenges. Hospitals and residential care centers had to be given extra support, local vaccination centers had to be quickly set up, etc. These circumstances led Flemish local authorities to shift their priorities in order to provide local services that were needed to meet the health challenges caused by the COVID-19 crisis. In this sense, SDG3 became a priority for many organizations due to COVID-19, especially for cities and municipalities (Table 2). One of the other main consequences is the fact that SDG1 (no poverty) has been severely hit by the economic crisis following the COVID-19 crisis, as roughly half a billion people are likely to have been driven into poverty [18]. This has engaged the public sector more in the fight against poverty. During the pandemic, the UN projected that this increase in poverty could represent a reversal of approximately a decade in the world’s progress in reducing poverty [13,14]. No wonder SDG1 became another main priority behind health following the COVID-19 outbreak. As mentioned above, this is reflected in the results, since at the time of the survey (mid-COVID-19 crisis), SDG3 and SDG1 were the SDGs on which Flemish cities and municipalities were engaged the most. We thus argued that SDG priorities had been shifted by the crisis. Although there were priorities before COVID-19, the pandemic ensured that cities and municipalities shifted their priorities or reworked them to respond to the crisis. At the same time, the cities and municipalities were able to protect themselves by setting priorities once the pandemic was over.

If we compare the above findings, we can conclude that cities and municipalities mainly focused on SDG3 (good health and well-being), SDG1 (no poverty), SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities), and SDG4 (quality education). Due to the COVID-19 crisis, some of these SDGs got even more prioritized (SDG3/SDG1). As a consequence, the engagement with these SDGs has also increased, and the cities and municipalities plan to continue this into subsequent years. In fact, the engagement of cities and municipalities has increased sharply during the COVID-19 crisis regarding specifically these SDGs. As a result, H2 is also accepted: local governments’ implementation of some SDGs that got prioritized due to COVID-19 got accelerated. This sudden shift in priority could also mean that they had to postpone other SDG-related activities until COVID-19 was under control, which in turn also explained the overall slowdown of SDG implementation in general (H1).

5.3. The Postponement Effect

Figure 4 and

Table 3. SDG Implementation of Flemish cities/municipalities—SDG Compass.

	Currently		If COVID-19 Had not Been There		Within 1 Year
	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%
Understanding the SDGs	88	67.69%	86	66.15%	71	54.62%
Defining priorities	30	23.08%	37	28.46%	54	41.54%
Setting goals	42	32.31%	50	38.46%	53	40.77%
Integrating	26	20.00%	37	28.46%	53	40.77%
Reporting & communicating	35	26.92%	32	24.62%	48	36.92%
Total responses	221	n = 130	242	n = 130	279	n = 130

show the results of the SDG implementation activities in the current situation, in the hypothetical counterfactual situation (given the non-existence of COVID-19), and in the future. To gain insights into SDG implementation activities, we made use of the SDG compass and its five proposed steps (activities). We noticed that, for example, at the moment of the survey, 88 cities and municipalities indicated that they had been engaging with ‘understanding the SDGs’, which corresponds to almost 70% of all the participants. This means that about two-thirds of the Flemish cities and municipalities were actively engaged with ‘Understanding the SDGs’ at the moment of the survey. Keep in mind that this constitutes a snapshot. It could be the case that of the 30% who are not doing this, a number of them might have already taken this step in the past.

The results indicated that if there had not been a COVID-19 crisis, cities and municipalities would have achieved a little more with regard to the application of the SDGs in their policies, especially in terms of defining priorities, setting goals, and integrating. We also noticed that had COVID-19 not been there, a total of 242 activities would have been undertaken by the 130 participants. At the time of the survey, a total of 221 activities were being undertaken by the 130 participants. Hence, had it not been for COVID-19, nearly 10% more SDG implementation activities in total would have taken place. This showed again that, to a limited extent, there was some postponement of SDG activities. When we then looked at the future numbers (within a year), we saw that some of these activities are clearly increasing, sometimes even doubling. Additionally, the 130 participants indicated that they would undertake 279 SDG implementation activities in total within a year, meaning an increase of more than 25%. This again demonstrated both the commitment referred to earlier but also gave a limited indication of a deferral of various SDG activities.

Therefore, we found that if COVID-19 have not been there, Flemish cities and municipalities would have achieved somewhat more regarding SDG implementation activities. On top, we found that during COVID-19, some SDG implementation activities were not coming up, although a lot of cities and municipalities were actually planning them. This gave us an indication that, during the COVID-19 crisis, local governments indeed postponed certain SDG implementation activities. We thus accepted H3: due to the COVID-19 crisis, local governments postponed certain SDG implementation activities.

Again, these results are within a pattern of expectation. Due to COVID-19, organizations around the world were forced to suspend several activities and/or to even shut down (Leal Filho et al., 2020). The former also applied to state and local governments as COVID-19 shocked cities and revealed some of their vulnerabilities [54]. Virtually overnight, cities were forced to organize, implement, and financially respond to both public health and economic crisis [55]. Hence, COVID-19 created a lot of policy challenges for them, but also some financial challenges. Given significant losses in revenues and increased expenditures, cities had thus to face severe problems on both the revenue and expenditure sides of their budgets [56]. As a consequence of these financial and policy challenges, a lot of cities and municipalities postponed, paused, or even stopped some activities. A recent study, for example, showed that due to COVID-19, almost all of the researched cities and municipalities stopped the preparation and implementation of new investments and also stopped providing financial support to, for example, sports and culture [56]. As a result, non-priority expenditures and planned investments were canceled or postponed. The same went for planned activities and projects. Many non-priority activities and projects of cities and municipalities were also postponed or canceled because of COVID-19 and had to give way to what at that time really counted. Essentially, one could expect this since literature tells us that when organizations are facing harsh times; voluntary and non-priority activities and expenses are the first things to be axed [57]. One could argue that at the time of COVID-19, when cities were forced to organize and implement massive responses to an unseen crisis, conducting activities for SDG implementation was neither a priority nor mandatory. Therefore, one could expect that many of these activities were indeed axed or postponed.

It is noticeable that at the time of the survey, less than one-third of all the cities and municipalities were involved in what we considered the more intensive and complex steps in the SDG compass (defining priorities, setting goals, integrating, and reporting and communicating). This seems to be a general tendency in many organizations as other research pointed to a superficial engagement with the SDGs for the vast majority of organizations, which, according to some, could suggest a process of ‘SDG-washing’ [58]. Embracing but not fully implementing SDGs could create a particular danger: that of unintended ‘SDG washing’. Organizations should guard against what scholars have termed SDG cherry-picking. Prioritizing within the SDGs is sound when it is established through coherent and structured approaches [59,60], as otherwise, there is a risk of “cherry picking” the goals that the organization was already working on and not dealing with those that were left out but were still important for the organization or its stakeholders [61], which can lead to reinforcing “business as usual” and stopping the transformational character of the 2030 Agenda [40].

6. Discussion and Conclusions

The main ambition of this study was to examine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the local public sector’s SDG implementation. Practitioners and scholars of the public sector have recently begun to realize that the pandemic and its aftermath offer an opportunity to rethink our (economic) policy foundations and align them with the needs of the people and the planet. This study built on a growing body of work that has pointed at the impact of COVID-19 on macro and micro levels, especially on public organizations, using an innovative methodological approach to single out the effects of the pandemic at the organizational level while looking into the past, the period of the pandemic, and after the pandemic and to evaluate public organizations’ efforts to implement the UN 2030 Agenda.

Our findings offered support to the expectations that COVID-19 has slowed down the public sector’s SDG implementation at the local level. At the same time, COVID-19 has allowed local public institutions to accelerate the implementation of a number of key SDGs that got prioritized due to COVID-19, such as SDG3 (health) and SDG1 (poverty). COVID-19 has also allowed local governments to set new priorities in this way, some of which will be accomplished once the pandemic is ‘over’. In that sense, COVID-19 has acted as a sort of accelerant. Finally, due to COVID-19, local governments postponed a few SDG-related activities, which would be resumed once the pandemic is ‘over’. Our study contributed to other studies by demonstrating that the findings hold when using a counterfactual approach of not just ‘how did COVID-19 prevent organizations from implementing SDGs?’ but also ‘what stage would the organization be at if COVID-19 had not been there?’ and ‘how does the organization plan implementing SDGs once the pandemic is over?’ As such, this study is the first to offer rigorous empirical evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on public organizations at the local level contributing to existing findings that have studied the impact of COVID-19 at a macro level and on individuals.

The findings of this study suggested two main contributions for scholars and practitioners dealing with SDGs. At the theory level, the contribution of this paper lies in its support that while individuals are part of systems, both entities are separate and react to the crisis differently. As such, reactions to a crisis, either by individuals or systems, are a vital element to be considered in understanding the impact of a crisis within the context of layers. To our knowledge, this study is the first to rigorously separate organizations (systems) and individuals and show how organizations, with the example of local public institutions, reacted to and were affected by the COVID-19 crisis. SDG achievement is important not just to individuals but also to organizations and hence the importance of our research. Future studies could focus on how organizations in the private sector react and get affected by the crisis.

The second contribution of our study is at the level of the methodological approach. Although different scholars analyzed the effects of COVID-19 on SDGs [4,9,18], it was unclear whether the effects on SDG implementation are only attributable to the COVID-19 crisis or had been there before. Using data from the survey we conducted together with VVSG, we were able to disentangle various effects over time. Besides knowing what the effects of COVID-19 are on the implementation of SDGs, our methodological approach allowed us to estimate corresponding counterfactual situations in the past and in the future. This strategy allowed us to distinguish effects caused by pre-existing problems predating the crisis from the effects of the crisis and also allowed us to estimate what reactions would be taken to counter both types of effects. This allowed us to support the proposed hypotheses and to make empirical claims regarding diverse effects on public organizations’ quest to implement SDGs.

There are a number of limitations and research implications associated with this study. We are aware that there could be some other hidden factors, mechanisms, and processes (such as funding, size, expertise, SDG maturity, etc.) of which we currently have no data that make local governments’ SDG implementation positively and negatively affected by COVID-19 (either concurrently or separately). We are also aware that specific state and institutional structures in which local governments operate could have a significant influence on the explored relationship. We are also aware of the fact that these structures differ amongst nations (e.g., developed vs. developing states), limiting the generalization of the findings. Future studies could adopt other methodological approaches, such as process tracing in qualitative analysis, to complement our correlation approach in the analysis of causation.

In line with the research implication for practice, the results call for a focus on all SDGs instead of falling into cherry-picking and SDG washing. Given that COVID-19 has reversed the progress made on achieving the Agenda 2030, renewed effort in the implementation of SDGs by public organizations and private ones alike is crucial. There is a need for different organizations and levels to adjust their priorities in line with COVID-19 effects but also bearing in mind that there is an interaction between individual SDGs. This argument becomes more important when taking into account the long-term effects of COVID-19. Bearing this in mind will lead organizations both at local and other levels to adopt new strategies that may accelerate the implementation of SDGs so that no one can be left behind. This study joins various earlier studies on the effects of crises on SDG implementation. It is good to always consider both negative effects and positive effects. COVID-19 is a wake-up call and an opportunity to commit more toward the implementation of SDGs. During the crisis, it became apparent that the focus turned on solving the crisis, and this involved setting new priorities and postponing some activities. Once the crisis is over, the public sector falls back to its initial priorities. Some institutions even propose to strengthen some of the pre-crisis priorities mainly because of the lessons they have learned from the crisis. Whether it is strengthening existing priorities or taking on new or initially neglected elements as priorities, COVID-19 has led the public sector to adopt a temporary shift in priorities in certain SDGs and other unrelated activities.