A new guide for Scottish policy makers launched in January 2021, created through a collaboration between government and civil society organisations.

The resource is the result of a partnership established in February 2020 between the National Performance Framework (NPF) team at the Scottish Government, the IDEAS network, SDG Network Scotland, Scotland’s International Development Alliance, and Oxfam Scotland – and was supported through the Bridge 47 project.

Designed to support coherent, holistic policy making, the guide reflects our interconnected world and addresses the need to better navigate its complexities. The NPF is Scotland’s way of localising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In using this toolkit, policy makers will be supported to incorporate both frameworks more effectively across all key stages of the policy making process.

Structured in two parts, the guide first contextualises the SDGs and the NPF, illustrating how the two are interlinked. The second half uses a Global Citizenship Education approach to provide practical, interactive activities to explore how to apply the two frameworks in a manner that is inclusive and reflective.

Alongside highlighting the importance of education that is transformative, values-based and lifelong, the resource also underlines how Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development can ensure a joined-up approach to policy making that takes into account the interconnected nature of the issues we face here in Scotland and across the world.

This resource comes at a critical juncture. The Covid-19 pandemic has emphasised local-global interconnections and the difficulties posed by complex global problems. They require us to be holistic in our policy making and understand that we are part of a bigger system: where the decisions we make and the actions we take have an impact on others locally, nationally and internationally, now and into the future.

The toolkit shows that the aims of values of Global Citizenship go further than the education sphere. They cut across wider society, providing an inclusive and reflective lens through which to engage with sustainable development.

Policy is a mechanism for creating change. This new resource aims to support our national and international policy making to take a holistic view of systemic problems, and ultimately to have a positive impact on both people and planet - all part of Scotland's role in the world as a global citizen.

You can view the resource – ‘Outcomes-focused Policy Making in Scotland’ – on the National Performance Framework website.

Read the blogpost from the National Performance Framework Team at Scottish Government here.