National Action Plan for Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development

Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD) is a guiding principle and mean of implementation of the National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS). The NSDS recognizes the central role and value of PCSD into the “Sustainability vectors” and includes, as annex, the National Action Plan for Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD NAP).

 The National Action Plan for PSCD | link
 

The PCSD NAP was developed as part of the NSDS triannual review, through a two-year participative process and in accordance with the 2019 OECD Recommendation on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development. It builds on the results of the Italy Governance Scan for Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development and is the main result of the project "Policy coherence for sustainable development: mainstreaming the SDGs in Italian decision making process to enforce the paradigm shift" (PCSD Project). The project, co-funded by the European Union under the Structural Reform Support Programme (now TSI – Technical Support Instrument), was carried out in co-operation between the European Commission’s DG Structural Reform Support, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Italian Ministry of the Environment.

The PCSD NAP is in line with the Recommendation and is built onto three pillars:

1. Vision and Leadership
2. Institutional Mechanisms
3. Policy Financing and Impacts

Each pillar includes a set of Actions, Expected Results and Targets, linked to the three “Sustainability Vectors” as identified into the NSDS, aiming at enhancing the strengths and overcoming the weaknesses of the Italian system - as identified in the Italy Governance Scan for Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development, in an incremental iterative approach.

The fundamental role that governance plays in the implementation of the interconnected goals of the 2030 Agenda and NSDS is thoroughly explored in the Plan and operationalized through concrete actions, results and time-bound targets. The PCSD NAP sets out an incremental path to mainstream sustainability as a standard for decision-making, systematically taking into account synergies and trade-offs among policy sectors, priorities for future generations and for other countries, in particular developing ones.

The design of the Plan have based on inter-institutional collaboration (both horizontal and vertical) and multi-actor participation. It also led to the preliminary definition of PCSD tools (such as the coherence matrixes, policy fiches and dashboard) to inter-operationalize existing policies and ease policy - assessment towards the SDGs including the Recovery and Resilience Fund and EU structural funds programmes.