Executive summary
Italy has developed, through a two-year participative process and with the support of the OECD and the European Commission, the National Action Plan for Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (NAP). The fundamental role that governance plays in the implementation of the interconnected goals of the 2030 Agenda is thoroughly explored in the Plan and operationalised through concrete actions, results and time-bound targets. The NAP sets out an incremental path to mainstream sustainability as the standard for all decisions, systematically taking into account the trade-offs with other sectors, the priorities for future generations and for other countries, in particular developing ones. Two elements have characterised its formulation: first, horizontal, vertical and multi-actor participation and second, the identification of tools (such as the coherence matrixes, policy fiches and dashboard) to inter-operationalise existing policies and evaluation frameworks, such as the one associated to the Recovery and Resilience Fund, with the objectives of the NSDS, in order to facilitate policy integration and data comparability across sectors.
NAP’s key elements and benefits that they could bring to Italy include:
Establishing policy coherence as the enabling factor for the implementation at all levels of the revised National Strategy for Sustainable Development 2022 (the 2022 NSDS/SNSvS revision proposal): this Plan will be presented for approval by the Inter-ministerial Committee for Ecological Transition (CITE) as the annex to the 2022 NSDS revision proposal with the aim of ensuring that public policies and investments (initiative and responsibility of the executive) take into account the three sustainability dimensions and accelerate the NSDS’s implementation.
PCSD focal units within ministries and PCSD Labs are envisaged to facilitate information flows during policy formulation and evaluation within and across ministries with a view to producing more integrated policies. That Information multi-dimensional policy impacts would be discussed among other relevant ministries through the PCSD Labs before a legislation or strategy is submitted to inter-ministerial or parliamentary scrutiny. The shared knowledge of policies’ impact that the Labs will generate could increase the number of cross-sectoral policies being designed and implemented with simultaneous positive impacts across different areas of sustainability and increase budget efficiency.
Coherence Matrixes and Policy coherence Fiches: the NAP introduces these operational tools to map existent and future policies in relation to the NSDS strategic choices. In the past regional officers and Tecnostruttura, the Ragioneria Generale dello Stato, and the NUVAP (DIPCOE) developed matrices connecting the indicators and related actions of ordinary policies with those of the European Structural Investment and Funds and the Recovery and Resilience Fund and showing their overall contributions to the NSDS and the SDGs. These experiences demonstrated the feasibility and potential use of such coherence instruments that the NAP proposes to incrementally apply at all levels. By doing so, sustainability priorities would be embedded as the principle inspiring policy formulation and evaluation across Italian policy cycle.
A Sustainability Dashboard is foreseen in the NAP that could generate, and constantly update an integrated picture of how Italy is progressing towards the NSDS’s implementation. The Sustainability Dashboard indicators will derive from the Coherence Matrixes. The Dashboard will reflect on the interactions across indicators from different policy areas, improving government’s capacity to look across indicator frameworks and assess positive and negative interactions of sectoral policies. Compiling such data is crucial to monitor the key context indicators for the implementation of the NSDS over time and will also help introducing performance and process indicators in the decision-making cycle. .
Improve the links between existing ex ante policy assessment and budgeting tools and sustainability principles and objectives. The information required by law for ex ante policy assessments (i.e. Committee for sustainable economic investments or CIPESS, Regulatory impact assessment or VIR, Strategic Environmental assessment or VAS/IPPC/EIA, Do No Significant Harm or DNSH, etc.) as well as for budget screenings (gender, green, Equitable and Sustainable Well-being EWB/BES, etc.) would be compiled in the policy coherence fiches, allowing to connect the information produced and assessing policies for their overall impact across NSDS objectives.
Enhanced skills for integrated policy programming focused on sustainability priorities. The NAP introduces concrete coherence tools and envisages capacity building for public officers at all levels to facilitate their work when formulating and implement evidence-based policies to achieve multidimensional sustainability objectives. In this sense, the Italian School of Public Administration and the Public Function Department are identified as key partners (i.e policy coherence, foresight, policy interlinkages) and implement capacity-building mechanisms.
A collaborative path towards systematic inclusion of civil society in the policy cycle. The NAP envisages the participation of the National Forum for Sustainable Development in its relation with the Working Group 1 of the National Council for Development Co-operation (CNCS) in procedural and consultative processes for the definition of coherence tools as well as the integration of their views in new policies (on the initiative and responsibility of the executive) and in the annual report on NSDS implementation.
A strengthened role for existing multi-level collaborative roundtables across the spectrum of national-local strategies that contribute to sustainability. The Tavoli di confronto for sharing the practices and measurement of the NSDS would be institutionalised and they would also be mobilised, together with the territorial Cabine di Regia for sustainable development, when discussing the implementation of other sectoral national-local strategies that contribute to sustainability, potentially using the same indicators.
A more systematic consideration of domestic policies’ impact on developing countries. The coherence matrices would cross-check the transboundary impacts of sectoral policies associated to a NSDS strategic choice and highlight potential trade-offs.
Increased awareness across Italian society of sustainability issues and cross-cutting approaches. Educational Pacts would be implemented to support teachers, university professors and professional orders are trained on systemic approaches to sustainability as part of their lifelong training programmes (e.g. crediti formative/open badge).
The NAPs Monitoring and assessment framework currently being developed will take stock of its implementation and its effects in achieving the NSDS indicators. As the Italian Action Plan is the first such plan, the progress made in Italy in implementing PCSD tools and capabilities will set the standard for other countries.