Tool // Integrated SDG Planning Model iSDG

The SDGs are an ambitious global agenda that will shape development efforts over the next 14 years. Efforts at the national and sub-national level will focus on localizing and prioritizing the SDGs, with a view to developing policies and programs to fast-track their achievement. The iSDG model enables countries to meet this crucial challenge, having taken into account national realities, capacities, and levels of development. The iSDG model enables policy makers and planning officials at all levels of governance to understand the interconnectedness of policies designed to achieve the SDGs and test their likely impacts before adopting them. An integrated analysis is required to successfully address complex development issues that balance social, economic, and environmental development. By bringing together the three dimensions of sustainable development into one framework, the iSDG model enables broad, cross-sector and long-term analyses of the impacts of alternative policies. The model simulates the fundamental trends for SDGs until 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario, and supports the analysis of relevant alternative scenarios. It also traces the trends beyond the SDGs’ time span to 2050. The iSDG model is especially useful both in the early stages of policy design, to support scenario exploration, and in its advanced stage, when specific interventions designed for various sectors can be jointly simulated to assess their combined effect.

The model is structured to allow for rapid expansion to support the analysis of other country-specific development issues beyond the SDGs. Its user-friendly desktop interface allows various stakeholders to use it, and a portable version is also being developed. The model’s interface allows users to chart potential progress toward each of the SDGs; evaluate synergies and trade-offs among proposed policies and strategies; and foresee their long-term impacts up to year 2050. With the iSDG model, countries can pursue a holistic development strategy that balances the three dimensions of sustainable development. The model can be downloaded at http://goo.gl/Kc9B89.For more information visit www.isdgs.org or contact ao@millennium-institute.org