Structure of Governance for the SDG
Sustainable development goals are defined as the plan or strategy to accomplish a better and sustainable future for everyone on the earth (Kates 2018). These goals are designed to protect the environment, reduce poverty and inequality, providing job opportunity, ensuring peace, justice and prosperity. This report addresses 8th sustainable development goal, that is, “Decent Work and Economic Growth” and its various aspects, such as, its structure of governance, identification of the stakeholders as per the Mitchell et al’s (1997) article “Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: defining the principle of and what really counts”, and appraisal with the PRME core principals. It also provides recommendations for applying the goals effectively.
This goal aimed to promote the sustained and inclusive economic growth along with full and productive decent work opportunity for all. Economic growth is essential for sustainability. Economic growth refers to the increase in the products of goods and services per head over a certain financial year and to achieve a growing production, decent and full employment is required. This in turn leads to a sustainable growth for the community. The target indicators include per capita economic growth as per the circumstances of the nation, with a minimum of 7% gross growth rate of real GDP per capita; achieving higher levels of economic productivity through technological advancement, innovation and diversification, with a focus on the labor intensive sector to increase the employment; and increasing gender equality in non-agricultural employment.
Structure of governance for supporting the SDGs requires effective interactions, infrastructures and institutions (Joshi, Hughes and Sisk 2015). To achieve the goal of decent work and economic growth, inclusive employment opportunities and growth are required. According to the structure of target indicators, annual real GDP per capita growth rate, annual real GDP growth rate per employed person, increase in gender equality, increase in material footprint and consumptions per capita and per GDP are required to be achieved. For the growth of decent work and to achieve sustainability by 2030, full and productive employment should be achieved, irrespective of sex, age and disability and there should be equal pay for the work of equal value for both men and women. By 2020, there should be a reduction in the number or proportion of youth, not engaged in education, training or employment. Effective measures should be taken to reduce forced labor, modern slavery, and human trafficking. Another agendas of this goal are to reduce the rate of fatal and non-fatal work place injuries, increase in the national compliances of the labor rights, increase in tourism promotion and jobs to increase GDP, increase in the branches of commercial banks and ATMs per 100,000 adults and in the number of savings account, increasing the trade support funding and lastly, by 2020, increasing the government spending in the social protection and in the employment programs as a percentage of GDP and national budgets (sustainabledevelopment.un.org 2018). Thus, from the SDG it can be inferred that, the goal includes multiple sections of the job sector, human and labor rights as well as factors of economic growth to establish a sustainable economic growth for the communities as a whole.
Stakeholder Identification for the SDG
The governance structure therefore should cover all these elements of the SDG. As the objective of these goals is to ensure the well being of all species by protecting the natural environment and providing suitable and sustainable infrastructure, thus, interaction between the institutions is essential for the infrastructure, needed to achieve the goal. As stated by Biermann, Kanie and Kim (2017), governance refers to the institutions or processes, which are backed by the political party of the nation, that set some activities that need to be controlled or influenced for the collective interest. Hence, governance structure for the 8th SDG will include the employment and production specific factors, such as, ILO and other labor rights organizations, international political and domestic institutions, non-agricultural employment sectors, that is, various types of public and private industries. There should be synergic interaction among these institutions for creating employment opportunities, reducing the gender pay gap, and child labor and achieving sustainable economic growth. Infrastructures as per the national regulations should be developed to provide the opportunities. For example, education opportunities should be provided to all, especially to the children and youth, irrespective of gender and economic condition, regulations should be imposed and followed strictly against child labor, banks should expand its operations and ATM infrastructures, and industries should be developed and proper equipment, capital and other resources should be supported by the government to create inclusive, full and productive employment and increase production and consumption level, which in turn increases the total and per capita GDP.
Figure 1: SDG Governance
(Source: Nilsson, Griggs and Visbeck 2016)
The stakeholders of the sustainable development goals by the United Nations belong to all the sectors of the society. For the 8th SDG, the stakeholders are the business and industry, men, women, children and youth, tourism and other manufacturing sectors and commercial banks. As the goal aims to achieve an inclusive economic growth and equal job opportunities in all types of industries, hence, all the sectors are stakeholder for this goal.
Figure 2: Stakeholder Salience Theory
(Source: Thijssens, Bollen and Hassink 2015)
According to the stakeholder salience theory by Mitchell, Agle and Wood (), stakeholder salience includes the following attributes: i) the stakeholders’ power of influencing the firms, ii) legitimacy of the stakeholders with the firm and iii) urgency of the claim of the stakeholders on the firm. The green colored section implies latent stakeholders, who have only one attribute and low salience. The stakeholders in the amber color are the expectant stakeholders with two attributes and moderate salience. They have higher level of engagement with the firms. Lastly, the red section denotes definitive stakeholders, who have all the three attributes and high salience. The firms give them immediate priority.
- Businesses and industries are the definitive stakeholders of the 8thSDG, having all the three attributes of power, urgency and legitimacy. They can impose their power and legitimacy on the government to fulfill their demand urgently, since, government support is urgently required to make developmental strategies and to meet the capital requirement.
- The men, women, youth and children are the dependent stakeholders, having the attributes of urgency and legitimacy. As they cannot advocate for their issues themselves due to lack of power and hence, their issues are highlighted and advocated by the government, which is dominant stakeholder.
- Other sectors of economy involved in production and consumption of the goods and services include manufacturing, trade and tourism. These falls under the category of expectant stakeholders, that is, dominant stakeholders, having the attributes of power and legitimacy.
- Commercial banks also fall under the category of dominant stakeholders as they will be benefitted from the aid to expand their branches and ATMs for accomplishing inclusive growth. They also have the attributes of power and legitimacy.
Appraisal with the PRME Core Principles
Responsible Management Education (PRME) has six core principles which aim to educate the future and existing managers about implementing sustainable practices effectively to achieve the sustainable development goals. Those principles are purpose, values, method, research, partnership and dialogue (unprme.org 2018.).
The SDG of decent work and economic growth can be appraised for these six principles for achieving or supporting the goal.
- Purpose:this aims to develop the abilities of the students to contribute in the future sustainability for the businesses and community at large. 8th SDG has the target of reducing the proportion of youth, not engaged in education, training or employment. It also aims to reduce the child labor proportion and educate them. Thus, by providing the education opportunities, its purpose of developing the human resource is fulfilled.
- Values:the values imply that the SDGs should be aligned with the CSR activities of the organizations, as in case of United Nations Global Compact (unglobalcompact.org 2018). Regarding the 8th goal, the stakeholder organizations launch CSR activities with a purpose of the community development. They can create employment opportunities for the less developed sections of the community, create educational scopes, arrange for healthcare services or undertake activities to protect the environment, such as, responsible production and consumption, reducing pollution emitting technologies. They can contribute in developing the basic infrastructure, which could be beneficial for tourism. These are also beneficial for the growth of the trade sector.
- Method:This principle focuses on creating educational frameworks processes, materials and environment required for effective leadership. In the context of the 8th SDG, this method is not precisely suitable as there is no scope for creating education frameworks.
- Research:This principle involves the empirical and conceptual research advancing the understanding of the dynamics, role and effect of the corporations for creating sustainable environmental, economic and social values. In this regard, it can be said that for implementing the targets and activities to achieve the 8th SDG, the organizations and the government need to conduct both of types of research to understand the market requirement, so that production and consumptions wastes can be reduced. Achieving the sustainable values for all the sections in the society involve reduction in pollution, and resources. Thus, before undertaking any investment activity, the organizations should conduct extensive research and understand the dynamics of the existing situations and take actions accordingly.
- Partnership:this allows the interaction with the corporate managers to understand the existing and potential challenges while meeting the environmental and social responsibilities and explore jointly the ways to mitigate the challenges. Regarding the 8th SDG, the government and the organizations or two private organizations collaborate to plan and undertake the developmental activities as per the requirements of the community. For example, the banks need government support to expand its operations to remote areas, which in turn contributes in the inclusive economic growth.
- Dialogue:This last principle allows the stakeholders, that is, the students, educators, government, business organizations, media, consumers, civil society etc. to have discussions and debates about the critical issues in relation to the global sustainability and social responsibility. This principle is very important to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing measures undertaken for achieving the goals. In the context of the 8th goal, there is provision for the stakeholders to engage in discussions and debates to measure the effectiveness of the implemented projects and developmental activities. This measure is beneficial for understanding that whether the actions have achieved the expected utility, or the challenges faced while implementing the measures and to find out ways to overcome the challenges.
Thus, to support the target of the SDG of decent works and economic growth, the focus is on the industrial and trade sector development, all inclusive education and employment opportunities, and development and expansion of commercial banks. To meet these requirements, the stakeholders follow 5 principles of PRME, except for the methods, that emphasizes on creating educational frameworks and processes to gain effective learning experiences for a responsible leadership. As per the need of the society and resource availability, the strategies are planned and implemented.
Two recommendations can be provided, which are aligned with the core principles of PRME.
- Organizations can follow the first and second principle, that is, purpose and values, to define their developmental activities. The purpose message should be clear and have the focus towards the development of the environment and community. The values should be designed such that the activities follow the economic and social values of the community and also bring benefits to the environment. The corporate houses should involve in activities such as reducing the carbon footprint, planting trees, reduce rapid urbanization and introduce various social welfare programs for the benefit of the natural environment and society. Educational programs should be offered to the less developed class and make them ready for employment. This step would help to achieve the goal for decent work. They should not practice gender pay gap and employment of child labor. The youth should be involved in education or job for achieving an inclusive economic growth.
- The organizations should follow the principle of method while developing the development plans. The managers of the corporate houses must be educated to evaluate, plan and implement the development strategies as per the need and availability of the resources. This would be a step closer to responsible production and consumption. Following a method can be helpful in reducing the wastage of resources, which is also beneficial for achieving sustainability.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the sustainable development goal of decent work and economic growth is focused to achieve an inclusive growth for the community. The equality between men and women workers, reduction in the child labor and unemployed pool of youth and development and expansion of the commercial bank branches and ATMs are aimed through this sustainable goals and by following the purpose, values and method principles, the organizations, who are the dominant stakeholders, can bring sustainable development to the community through efficient usage of resources. This would not only lead to community development and a sustainable growth but also preservation of the natural resources can be possible.
References
Biermann, F., Kanie, N. and Kim, R.E., 2017. Global governance by goal-setting: the novel approach of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 26, pp.26-31.
Joshi, D.K., Hughes, B.B. and Sisk, T.D., 2015. Improving governance for the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals: Scenario forecasting the next 50 years. World Development, 70, pp.286-302.
Kates, R.W., 2018. What is sustainable development?.
Mitchell, R.K., Agle, B.R. and Wood, D.J., 1997. Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of management review, 22(4), pp.853-886.
Nilsson, M., Griggs, D. and Visbeck, M., 2016. Policy: map the interactions between Sustainable Development Goals. Nature News, 534(7607), p.320.
sustainabledevelopment.un.org, 2018. United Nations | Department of Economic and Social affairs. [online]. Available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg8 [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].
Thijssens, T., Bollen, L. and Hassink, H., 2015. Secondary stakeholder influence on CSR disclosure: An application of stakeholder salience theory. Journal of Business Ethics, 132(4), pp.873-891.
unglobalcompact.org, 2018. Principles for Responsible Management Education. [online]. United Nations Global Compact. Available at: https://www.unglobalcompact.org/take-action/action/management-education [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].
unprme.org, 2018. Our 2030 Vision: Six Principles. [online]. Available at: https://www.unprme.org/about-prme/the-six-principles.php [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018
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