Cross-project, cross-country learning about sustainable, inclusive development through focus group discussions

By Melanie van Driel, Knowledge Brokering and Synthesis team

The Knowledge Brokering and Synthesis project on Sustainable Development Goal interactions had the opportunity to organize a series of focus group discussions. These discussion, which took place between February and April of 2025, brought together doctoral and postdoctoral researchers working on different countries – ranging from South Asia to East Africa – and different research topics – ranging from women’s empowerment to climate smart agriculture.

The focus group discussions allowed the researchers to share preliminary findings. Melanie van Driel (postdoctoral researcher) and Nicky Pouw (principal investigator) facilitated these discussions. They steered towards the identification of cross-cutting insights, but were also interested in findings unique to specific country or case contexts that might help efforts to localize and contextualize the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Key discussion topics

During the sessions, insights around three key themes were discussed:

1.     Policy coherence for sustainable development

Before the onset of the sessions, a working definition of policy coherence was shared with the participants: An approach to integrate the dimensions of sustainable development throughout domestic and international policy-making. Balancing synergies and trade-offs only occurs when the outcome results in inclusive development and just outcomes over time and in different geographical contexts.

2.    Inclusive development and sustainable development

Here, the key starting point for discussions was the following working definition: inclusive development ultimately aims at both substantive as well as procedural changes. Substantively, interventions should reach the most marginalized groups (first) and ideally lead to a structural improvement of their position within society and real attention to their needs and interests. Procedurally, marginalized communities should be given a voice in decision-making processes and other processes that affect them.

3.    Interactions between sustainable development goals

Here, the discussion centered around findings about connections between goals, targets and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals Focused on. The KBS team posited that these might differ in terms of directionality, timeline, sequence, spatial impact and their degree of inclusivity.

The working definitions served as a starting point for the focus groups, and formed a good starting point to further reflect on them and collect input to further develop them in the future.

The way forward

The focus group discussions were a great way to share insights gained at an early phase of the research process. This contributed to a key goal of the University of Amsterdam based Knowledge Brokering and Synthesis project: utilizing knowledge gained from research earlier in the research process. The focus group discussions form one set of activities that aim to contribute to this knowledge utilization. Another recent example forms our co-learning conference with practitioners, policymakers and scholars held in The Hague in November of 2024.

In addition to knowledge sharing, the KBS team is working towards (a) synthesis publication(s) based on a number of the overarching insights gained on the themes of SDG interactions and inclusive development during the focus group discussions. In this way, we hope the insights will have an (even greater) impact on the scholarly community, but also professionals engaged in policy and practice.