Multi-sectoral strategies as dead ends of policy integration: Lessons to be learned from sustainable development

Until the mid-2000s, the rise of a “new pattern of strategy formation” in the context of sustainable development (SD) appeared to be a promising shift from mostly ineffective one-off-planning to iterative governance processes. The present paper revisits this once promising governance approach critically. Based on studies, evaluations and peer reviews, it synthesizes how national SD strategies have failed as policy documents and as governance processes in better integrating policies across sectors and levels of government. Based on the conclusion that comprehensive policy integration cannot be achieved through a single multi-sectoral strategy, we argue that it is time to either abandon an approach that has obviously failed to deliver or to recalibrate SD strategies towards the more realistic end of effectively communicating a long-term vision. Although the political relevance of SD strategies has declined in recent years, our findings are relevant to implementing other multi-sectoral strategies and the post-2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. While the former replicate already the governance failures analyzed here, the implementation of the latter runs a considerable risk of doing so in the near future.