The UN Regional Commissions as Orchestrators for the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

In 2015, the United Nations agreed on seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG s). These SDG s are not legally binding and lack strict enforcement mechanisms. International organizations that seek to implement these goals therefore rely on soft tools to influence governments and other actors, which is often described as “orchestration.” This article focuses on regional governance and studies the yet unexplored role of the five UN Regional Commissions. These commissions seek to link the global ambitions of the SDG s with regional actors, contexts, and priorities. Drawing on extensive document analysis and a series of semistructured expert interviews, the article analyzes the orchestration efforts of all five Regional Commissions, focusing on agenda setting, coordination, and support. It concludes that instead of a unified orchestrating role, Regional Commissions play in practice a balancing role for agenda setting, a sharing role when it comes to coordination, and a conforming role in terms of support.