Council contributes to international publication on “Pathways for national sustainable development advisory bodies”
Posted: September 20, 2021
The publication offers the following recommendations of relevance to Namibia’s Sustainable Development Advisory Council in terms of maintaining long-term cooperation with governments and other stakeholders:
- Build consensus on controversial topics and incorporate academic, societal and private sector perspectives. This is the official mandate and a unique value added to maintaining relevance in the long run.
- Constructively engage with the various stakeholder representatives in controversial topics/transformation areas and deliver value added through Realpolitik policy advice that mediates the conflicting positions of civil society, the private sector and academia.
- Establish constructive and trustful partnership with the government to enhance legitimacy through living up to the principle of leaving no one behind, institutionally as well as in the work carried out by the MSP-advisory body.
- Subnational engagement of MSP-advisory bodies to foster societal dialogue and advocacy for sustainable development: promote engagement with the society, subnational engagement and piloting of initiatives to foster dialogue and implementation at the local level.
- Enhance state capacities through the promotion of local and regional networks that strengthen public engagement and thereby both accelerate implementation and promote vertical policy coherence for the implementation of sustainable development.
- Empower the (independent) secretariat with sufficient financial resources and capacities to operate the body/platform and strengthen governance elements, including limited member size, transparent and/or credible selection processes for membership, and modalities for exchange across working groups within the MSP-advisory body.
- Promote regional cooperation and networks to accelerate knowledge sharing and implementation, and to tackle cross-border challenges through context-aware learning, adaptation and reflexive governance.
The full publication is available at the following link: