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

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The Authors deal with a very interesting and - as far as I know - underresearched topic. COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented issue for local communities so there may be a lot of lessons to learn.

The manuscript should be, however, improved in some aspects.

First, it is not clear in the first part of the manuscript that it is focused on the local governments. Thus, I suggest that it should be clarified both in case of the title and in the abstract. It is also not clear that what is the state structure of Flanders/Belgium, what kind of responsibilities and funds do have particular government bodies (municipalities, state government, federal government etc.). It will be also a limitation of the results since state structure of Flanders may differ from another states (e.g. the Netherlands or even Finland). Furthermore, it is a developed state so results cannot be generalised easily.

Second, survey should be added. I cannot check the questions and possible answers.

Third, analysis of data is very limited. I suggest that municipalities with more funds / expertise might accelerate their progress towards SDGs more than others. So Authors should investigate further what factors could influence the reaction of municipalities. I suspect that some bottlenecks (e.g. funds, expertise, size of municipality, etc.) could explain this heterogeneity.

Fourth and last, as the Authors also mention, SDGs are interlinked which is not straightforward for local officers, which means that we cannot expect that progress towards all SDGs are equal.

I suggest that Authors should refer to Muff et al (2017) in the background section because it is worth to note that developed countries had already met 70 percent of SDG targets in 2015.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2017.03.004 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for the favorable review of our paper, and for the suggestions you have proposed.

We acknowledge that it was not sufficiently apparent from the title and abstract that this study focuses on local governments. We have therefore made the necessary adjustments to remedy this.

We recognize that specific state and institutional structures in which local governments operate in Flanders/Belgium could have an influence on the explored relation between a shock and SDG implementation at the local government level. We are also aware of the fact that these structures differ amongst nations (e.g. developed vs. developing states), limiting generalization of the findings. To accommodate this, we explicitly include this as a limitation of the study. However, the objective of this study was not to investigate causal structures in any way, but rather to examine whether an external shock can have an effect on the SDGs at the level of local governments. So for this paper, we were interested in finding proof of the existence of such an effect, not in the why. We therefore added general information about the state structure of state structure of Flanders/Belgium without however diving into the details as we believe it does not add to the main goal of this paper. We will however develop this further in forthcoming research when we consider cause-effect analysis on the explored relation.

Next, we would like to politely point out to you that the survey questions of interest (including the answer options) are already included in the paper, and more specifically in the ‘Survey design’ section. Our sincere apologies if this was not clearly enough rendered. We made small adjustments in the paper to make this more explicit, and for your convenience, we list them here again:

• 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)
• 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)
• 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)

We also acknowledge that our analysis of the data is indeed somewhat limited. However, there are at least two reasons why this is the case. First, as already mentioned, the main goal of this paper was to examine whether an external shock can have an effect on the SDGs at the level of local governments. This paper is not concerned with examining why this effect occurs, and thus has no intention of uncovering causal structures. As a result, the data was mainly used in a descriptive way, and no attention was given to explaining heterogeneity. And second, there were some limitations regarding the data collection. We worked together with VVSG (Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities) to disseminate the survey with the intention of obtaining the highest possible response rate. We believe we succeeded, but this had also some disadvantages. The survey had to be completely anonymous and we were given only a limited number of survey questions to ask. As a result, we do not have data on funds, expertise, size of the cities and municipality, etc. So even if we wanted to, based on present data we are not in a position to examine these factors and explaining heterogeneity. However, to accommodate this, we explicitly include this as a limitation of the study, and we will do our outmost to address this in forthcoming research.

Finally, we don’t really understand what is meant by the fourth suggestion. To our knowledge, we never implied that progress towards all SDGs should be equal. In fact, we completely agree with the remark that is made.

We hope that with this response we have sufficiently taken your comments and suggestion to heart, and we would like to thank you again for sharing these with us.

We also thank you for the suggested references and added them to the manuscript.             

With high regards,

Reviewer 2 Report

 

Revised manuscript deals with a very actual issue - measuring the impact of external shocks on the sustainable development goals for the public sector. Authors present a methodological approach to this issue, based on descriptive statistics starting from the SDG Compass Guide.

 

The main contribution of the manuscript could be seen in being able to disentangle the various effects over time of Covid-19 on SDGs.

From this point of view, the manuscript offer a valuable input into the process of assessment and implementation of the SDGs at different levesl in the pandemic scenario. The extent of the manuscript is adequate, as well as the text form is appropriate, even if it is a bit too long for the usual standard.

On the other hand, I have few comments concerning the both methods and results. Therefore, I recommend to publish this article in the Sustainability journal after major revisions of the manuscript.

Main comments and recommendations to the manuscript:

I have to highlight these most important issues concerning the manuscript, which should be addressed by the authors within the process of the final editing:

a) Literature and Hypotheses offers a good overview to the issue; nevertheless, more examples from the level of municipalities (at local and micro-regional scale) would be appropriate (e.g. connected with European cities indicator systems).

The slowdown effect needs more evidence from the literature perspective, in order to result more scientifically based and robust and not to be simple part of the expected postponement effect due to the pandemic.

b) The article is more about the results for Flemish cities themselves than about the methodology of the research. But if so, i) it must be clarified strating form the title, and ii) financial information are missing (Euros devoted to investments) and needed to be elaborated in the results, if possible.

– If you want to link the slowdown effect to the time framework, some psychological theory could be helpful (see i.e. Ajzen TPB, theory of planned behaviour, but applied to public bodies and not individuals).

c) A general question regarding the results at page 8: are you sure that H1 acceptance is due to slowing down and not to the emergence of new priorities that could also affect different SDGs? There are i.e. evidence in the studies of EU funds and SDGs after covid about investments’ shift from one goal to others to meet the new needs induced by the pandemic (see i.e. Cavalli, L.; Sanna, S.; Alibegovic, M.; Arras, F.; Boe, S.; Cocco, G.; Cruickshank, E.; Farnia, L.; Manca, E.; Mulas, L.F.; Onnis, M.; Ortu, S.; Romani, I.G.; Testa, M. Localizing the 2030 Agenda at the Regional Level through the European Cohesion Policy: An Application to the Region of Sardinia. Environ. Sci. Proc. 2022, 15, 51. https://doi.org/10.3390/environsciproc2022015051).

Another potentiol critic: are the indicator we were using before the pandemic still the correct ones after covid?

d) The conclusion of the article is relatively appropriate – nevertheless, considering the former comment, I recommend to add a separate discussion section. This should include comparison to the related European research EU Recovery Plans, pros and cons of used approach and main points for further discussion in the field of SDGs measuring and valuating.

 Two additional references-suggestions that maybe are useful for the general topic covered:

https://sdgimpactassessmenttool.org/en-gb/articles/instructions

 

https://www.feem.it/publications/covid-19-sdgs-does-the-current-pandemic-have-an-impact-on-the-17-sustainable-development-goals-a-qualitative-analysis/

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Sincere gratitude for your favorable review of our paper, and for the esteemed suggestions you have  proposed.

We appreciate your suggestions regarding the literature part, and acknowledge the lack of examples at the municipal level. We have therefore made the necessary adjustments to address this, and to provide a more comprehensive situational context in the literature. We also recognize that the first hypothesis (slowdown effect) would indeed benefit from more scientific evidence, and we have again made the necessary adjustment to remedy this.

As you rightly point out, this paper is more about the results than about the methodology. It is by no means our intention to establish a new methodology of measuring SDGs at the local level. In fact we try not to get involved in this debate of SDG/impact measurement. The objective of this study was to examine whether an external shock can have a measurable effect on the SDGs at the level of local governments (the example in case being local government in Flanders), and to find proof of the existence of such an effect. We have therefore made the necessary adjustments in the title and in the abstract to make this clear from the outset. We also recognize that factors for explaining heterogeneity (e.g. funding, investments, size, etc.) are indeed missing in the paper. However, there are at least two explanatory/mitigating reasons for that. First, as already mentioned, the main goal of this paper was to examine whether an external shock can have an effect on the SDGs. This paper is not concerned with examining why this effect occurs, and thus has no intention of uncovering causal structures. As a result no attention was given to explaining heterogeneity, and in collecting these explanatory factors. And second, there were some limitations regarding the data collection. We worked together with VVSG (Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities) to disseminate the survey with the intention of obtaining the highest possible response rate. This proved successful, but came with the disadvantages that the survey had to be completely anonymous and with a limitation on the length of the survey.  As a result, we were not able to collect data on funds, expertise, size of the cities and municipality, etc. So even if we wanted to, we are not in a position to examine these factors and explaining heterogeneity in this paper. We will however do our outmost to address this suggestion in forthcoming research, by conducting cause-effect analysis on the explored relation.

We also want to thank you for the useful suggestion of linking the slowdown effect to the time framework. We do believe this could potentially provide some useful insights. However, due to the nature of this paper, and given the time restriction imposed on us (only 10 days revision time), we cannot convincingly at this point include psychological theory. Again, follow-up research should allow us to take up this suggestion.

Regarding your interesting question about the acceptance of hypothesis 1, we would like to  clarify that H1 (slowdown) relates to the SDGs in general (specifically SDG implementation), while H2 (prioritization & acceleration) relates to the individual goals.  We made small adjustments to clarify this further. The comment you made about the emergence of new (individual) SDG priorities is exactly what we discuss in the H2 section, and what is also confirmed by the data. Nevertheless, we also accept the slowdown effect of SDG implementation in general, as this was also clear from the data. More than 50% of the participating sustainability managers indicated that Covid-19 caused a slowdown on the SDG implementation process of their respective city/municipality. So based on the data, we can assume that while due to Covid-19 new priorities emerged that shifted individual SDG engagement, in general the process of SDG implementation slowed down. So indeed, both hypotheses are accepted.

Finally, we have given considerable thought to your suggestion to add a separate discussion section. In all candor, however, we decided not to do this for a couple of reasons. First, as mentioned, the goal of this paper is not primarily connected to proposing a new methodology of SDG measurement or with SDG measurement and valuation in general.  Second, with the time restriction imposed on us (only 10 days revision time), we do not see it possible to do this in a good and valid manner. It would change the introduction and setup of the paper, since we would need to refer to literature on measuring SDG’s and position our approach to the existing approaches. We hope for your understanding of this limitation.     

We experienced this review as positive and very helpful for our SDG research , and we would like to thank you again for sharing these with us. 

We also thank you for the suggested references and added them to the manuscript.      

With high regards,

Reviewer 3 Report

A good approach  -  at the theoretical level - focused on the approach according to which  - while individuals are part of systems, both entities are separate and react to the crisis differently.

Continuing the research  - qualitative analysis for the cause-effect correlation analysis.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Sincere gratitude for your favorable review of our paper.

We will do our outmost to address your suggestions in forthcoming research, by conducting cause-effect analysis on the explored relation.

With high regards,

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper was revised throroughly according to the comments. I suggest that the survey design might be more detailed to conduct much deeper analyses and to answer "why" questions. However, I could accept the answer of the Authors that the aim of the study was to examine, how the local governments were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been sufficiently improved. Thanks a lot to you for your great job!