Making multisectoral collaboration work

With 17 goals and many more targets, the all encompassing 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has been criticized as being too warm and cuddly, and its unwieldy message can feel like little more than a call for everyone to work together. But this rallying call may, in fact, catalyse one of the greatest breakthroughs by 2030. We believe that much of the power of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is in the 17th goal: “partnerships
for the goals.” This final goal could easily be overlooked by cynics as an administrative add-on, aiming merely to scoop up financing. It is here, however, that the goals’ power is hidden within broad indicators such as “policy coherence” and “multi-stakeholder partnerships.”

SDG 17 provides a powerful incentive to discuss matters regarded as beyond the remit of the health sector, as reflected in strategies and service delivery programmes and in the pages of medical journals. We also know that a substantial proportion of the gains for maternal and child health in the millennium development goal era were associated with interventions outside of the health sector.

 

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