Projects

Policy coherence

We have worked recently a lot with policy coherence at the NAO Finland and in the INTOSAI Working Group in Environmental Auditing. As sustainable development is about combining environment, social and economic considerations, it requires considerations on policy coherence. Concerning the UN Sustainable Development Goals, besides individual SDGs, also the interactions and dynamics between them are important.

In the following article we published the visualization on various elements of policy coherence in the context of sustainable development:

Niemenmaa, Vivi & Paula Kivimaa (2021). Policy coherence is the foundation of sustainable development and sound financial management. NAOF articles on Good Governance 2021.

This is a summary on two sessions on policy coherence in the European Environmental Evaluators Network in 2020:

Niemenmaa Vivi, Innanen Marja & Karoliina Pilli-Sihvola (eds., 2021). Policy coherence and sustainability transition – inspiration for auditors and evaluators. INTOSAI WGEA Seminar Summaries 1/2021.

This is blog summarizing how the NAOF approaches sustainable development and the SDGs: The sustainable development goals are becoming an integral part of the audit work. NAOF blog 24.9.2020.

Global spillovers

Here is a link to a summary from a cooperative course with University of Helsinki and National Audit Office on Geographies of Inequalities. We addressed the topic of global spillovers and students did fantastic group assignments on water footprint, the impact of EU agricultural policy in Africa, coal leakage in electricity production, global plastic waste flows, and environmental and social impacts of fast fashion: Aroalho, Sari & Julia Viertola (eds., 2020). Spillover effects of sustainable development goals – five case studies. Below is map that Dovydaitis, Holkkola, Johanson, Saksa and Virolainen made on dynamics of plastic waste import in Asia, after China banned the import of single use plastic waste.

Other sustainability topics

I wrote this together with Lassi Perkinen on the difficulties of governance systems to deal with longer term approaches. We study this in the context of policies on Agenda 2030 in the EU and Finland: How to combine sustainable development, future generations and administrative cycles? NAOF articles on Good Governance 2020.

Public auditors from around the world working together for a common sustainable future – the INTOSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing. ECA Journal 2/2020, pages 101-105.

This blog includes some reflections on delivering training on SDGs.  Sustainable development: common goals, different challenges. NAOF blog 4.9.2019.

Think long and hard about SDGs. CIPFA blog 29.10.2018