Designing a framework for sustainable development policy making by ISM- IPA approach

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework of 17 goals across social, economic and environmental areas of sustainable development, are an important idea, and could help finally to move the world to a sustainable trajectory. The SDGs form part of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development which UN member states adopted at the UN sustainable development summit in September 2015. This agenda can be expected to affect the policy and funding priorities of governments during this time. While there is growing interest in negotiations among policymakers surrounding 2030 agenda for sustainable development, research efforts for understanding the connections between goals and priority of them have been limited to a few prominent initiatives. In this paper, we applied a soft OR method, Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), with the ultimate goal of providing a model for SDGs in Iran. To identify the relationship and the importance of SDGs, interviews were conducted with 10 managers and experts of sustainable development. Then, for prioritizing goals, based on Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) of driving power, dependence and performance of Iran reported for that goals, a framework for classification and priorities of SDGs were provided. The results of the study indicate that the goals with higher priority in Iran differ greatly from those originally perceived and addressed under the SDGs. The goals “clean water and sanitation”, “industry, innovation and infrastructure”, “peace, justice and strong institutions” and “partnerships for the goals” were identified as high priorities for intervention and it is necessary for policymakers to pay more attention to them. Our application of ISM-IPA is unique in policy making and we have illustrated its utility for modelling and prioritizing of SDGs.