Discussant's perspective-Looking Beyond the Conventional

1. Discussant’s Perspective: Looking
Beyond the Conventional
JC Katyal

2. My Standpoints as Discussant
• Value add or raise some creative/proactive issues
• Make additional commentary to: (i) strengthen intended outcome of
the National Conference (India’s preparedness in achieving 4/17
SDGs) from the deliberations and (ii) inspire discussions on the
theme specific to Session 2 (status of developing indicators of the
SDGs)
• Make some out-of-box comments that challenge attainment of goals
of the National Conference, in general, and Session 2, in particular

3. India’s Preparedness: 2030 Committed Targets
• End poverty, hunger, malnutrition by sustainably doubling food
production, income, resilience …
• Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (limiting
the warming over the 21 century to below 2 ºC). India has committed to
reduce emissions intensity of its GDP by 20 to 25% by 2020
• By 2020, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil,
including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive
to achieve a land degradation-neutral India
Source: http://niti.gov.in/content/overview-sustainable-development-goals

4. Strategic Planning Pathway ≡ Blueprint of
Future Preparedness for Growth and Success
• Environment scanning – process of gathering, organizing and analysing
information (internal – strengths & weaknesses and external – threats &
opportunities - SWOT)
• Strategy formulation – what need to be addressed (strategic goals/
objectives); objective-clarity helps identifying relevant SDG-specific indicators
• Strategy implementation – most important part is communicating strategic
goals down the line (stakeholder participation/partnerships) & their holistic
execution
• Strategy monitoring and evaluation – successfully implementing and right-
tracking attainment of various elements forming indicators of a strategic plan

5. Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Internal
Externally
influenced as well;
SWOT unfavorable
in achieving SDG
targets (Source: UNICEF);
PEST a powerful
complimentary tool
SWOT vis a vis PEST

6. Political Economic
TechnologicalSocial
Legal Environ
mental
Looks at S cultural aspects
like CPR, native LU rules,
population growth,
migration, age distribution,
etc.
Looks at technological
change, R&D
activity/response, etc
Looks at economic well
being of SH; commitment
by states & private sector,
etc.
Looks at impact of govt.
policies - LUP&U, labor
laws, resource allocation,
trade restrictions etc.
PEST (LE) ANALYSIS

7. Indicators – Basic Criteria
Need is for having technically sound, quantitatively measurable indicators for each
goal/target. Collected data must fulfil following quality criteria:
 Relevance: applicability to broad range of India’s socio-economic geographical
and biophysical settings; also need to be relevant for monitoring SDG
commitments
 Statistical adequacy: reliable collection and processing of data that represents
most recent years and prompt schedule of transfer
Data quality: data derived from official sources must represent best available
measures for a specific element
Coverage: must cover a reasonably big area or large proportion of population
Source: SDG Index and Dashboards – Global Report 2016

8. Challenges to India Attaining SDGs
• Defining indicators: Past record not very encouraging on setting relevant indicators
measuring outcome
• Finance: a big hurdle to achieve 17 goals/169 targets; estimated shortfall (INR 533 T; for
SDG 15 gap is INR 15 T) (Technology and Action for Rural Advancement*)
• Measuring outcome: challenge is the ownership of the committed SDG goal/ sub-
targets by an agency/department; organizations/a political dispensation shun
responsibility of owning a program that is liable to monitoring
• Measuring progress: non-availability of data, particularly from the states, periodicity
issues information supply, incomplete coverage make accurate measuring of progress a
challenge
SDGs only provide broad goals and targets; for decision on indicators, national and state
governments have to set priorities, decide on locally relevant policies, commit finance,
harness innovation, genuine infusion of execution, implementation and monitoring plans
(*A Social Enterprise of Dev. Alternatives Group. Avani Kapur, Centre for Policy Research)

9. Land and
People:
SYSTEM DESIGN
SERVICE DELIVERY
(WITH NETWORK EFFECTS)
Increase scope for SLUP & integrate with
other economic sectors
Rationalize LU &Q monitoring
Capacity and quality improvement
FINANCING
Equitable access to LU&Q services
Cost-effective use of resources
 Holistic budgeting
On-ground provider of incentives
and management for primary
stakeholders
GOVERNANCE
Increased accountability of NARS
Optimal institutional structures and
decentralization
Effective regulation and supervision
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
Epicenter is stakeholders
Improve focus on equity and
gender rights
Increase accountability
Looking Forward