It is crucial to consider the international context when approaching sustainable development policies, given the need to act at all levels of governance, from local to global.
Furthermore, the different levels interact closely with each other, and there are reciprocal influences between them. Firstly, Belgium has actively contributed to the negotiations and implementation of these international commitments, including the most recent, the 2030 Agenda.
Secondly, the rolling out of national sustainable development policies is in line with international commitments in the field of sustainable development. For example, for the federal authority, the law of 5 May 1997 concerning the coordination of federal sustainable development policy is a direct response to the commitment made at the 1992 Rio United Nations Conference.
More recently, the SDGs and European policies, such as the European Green Deal, have had a direct impact on federal policies.
International commitments to sustainable development
As awareness of the environmental and development challenges facing the countries of the Global South grew in the 1960s and 1970s, governments began multilateral negotiations to manage these societal issues collectively, but in separate sectors.
Our understanding of the interactions between economic, social and environmental crises has gradually improved, and initiatives have been taken to address these issues by taking an integrated approach across multiple levels of international governance.
The first commitments were made by the United Nations at the Rio Conference in 1992 and have been reiterated on numerous occasions and refined at subsequent international conferences.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has also advanced its expertise in sustainable development, drawn up reference frameworks and consolidated its knowledge of SDG implementation. The OECD is also currently working on policy coherence for sustainable development. The aim is both to ensure that the domestic policies we pursue are consistent with each other, and that they have a beneficial impact on the achievement of the SDGs elsewhere in the world, and do not counteract the development efforts of third countries.
The European Union has also responded to the international commitments made in the area of sustainable development. It began by adopting a European sustainable development strategy in 2001, and, since 2019, has incorporated the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda into its programme of work.
FISD and international SD policy
At the FISD, and more specifically in the Governance Unit, it is therefore essential that international policy is monitored closely.
The Institute is also involved in determining Belgium's position, through intra-federal coordination bodies within the FPS Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation.
These bodies coordinate the preparation, definition, representation, management and monitoring of Belgium's multilateral (CoorMulti) and European (DGE) policies.
The FISD also takes part in exchanges between experts at international or European level (such as within the European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN) to deepen our knowledge and share our practices.
The FISD is, of course, also present on other bodies, including the "International Policy" working groups of the Interministerial Conference on Sustainable Development (IMCSD) and the Interdepartmental Commission for Sustainable Development (ICSD), and the Coordination Committee for International Environmental Policy.