IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2030 AGENDA IN SWEDEN

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Master thesis, 15 hp Political Science, 60 hp Autumn term 2020

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE

2030 AGENDA IN SWEDEN

Interpretation and application of

disability-inclusive goals at the local level

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to my two interviewees, who both truly are passionate about sustainable development. Your contribution is making our world a better place.

A very big thank you to my supervisor Prof. Camilla Sandström for the invaluable support and guidance through a jungle of relevant research and all the input essential to completing this thesis, including uncountable patient reminders that 40 pages do not fit everything you know and that that isn’t the purpose, either.

An equally big thank you to my husband Jim (as usual), for coffee, snowploughing, grocery shopping, feeding me, listening to me giving up and then continuing anyhow, and then more coffee. You know.

My deeply humble thanks to Covid-19, which in the most brutal fashion has reminded us that the world truly needs saving and that no one else is going to do it for us, no matter who wrote the action plan.

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ABSTRACT

This thesis studies the transfer of disability targets in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to the local level in Sweden and how this implementation contributes to the Agenda’s result on a global scale. In the summary of its final official report to the Swedish Government (SOU 2019:13), the Swedish Delegation for the 2030 Agenda states that the expression ‘sustainable development’ is applied in Sweden in two ways: while it is used with a focus on its environmental dimension, there is another, broader definition that also

encompasses its social and economic dimensions. In its own terms, the Delegation

consistently adheres to the broader definition, in accordance with the meaning of the 2030 Agenda (SOU 2019:13, p. 27). Rather than concentrating on the more amply researched and documented environmental dimension, this thesis highlights a social and economic dimension of the Agenda’s local implementation, bearing in mind the Agenda’s pledge that no one will be left behind. It examines how those among the 169 targets dealing with the interests of people with disabilities are transposed down to the local level and implemented. The conclusion points at the fact that, although all goals seem understood as indivisible at each level, results may uncover a big difference in how they are implemented and/or measured in practice, at each of the political-administrative levels involved, which makes it difficult to produce data on quantifiable progress on a specific target.

Keywords: indivisibility, multi-level governance, sustainable development, 2030 Agenda, disabilities, implementation

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ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

ECOSOC United Nations Economic and Social Council

EC European Commission

EESC European Economic and Social Committee EP European Parliament

EU European Union

HLPF UN High-Level Political Forum

IDDC International Disability and Development Consortium IIEP International Institute for Educational Planning IDA International Disabilities Alliance

KOLADA The Swedish statistical database for local authorities and regions MfD Myndigheten för Delaktighet (the Swedish Agency for Participation) MDG UN Millennium Development Goals

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

RKA Rådet för Främjande av Kommunala Analyser (providing the data to Kolada) SALAR Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR)

SCB Statistisk Centralbyrå (Statistics Sweden) SD Sustainable Development

SDG Sustainable Development Goal

SDSN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

UNCRPD UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities UNDESA UN Department of Social Affairs

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SDG CARD FOR REFERENCE

Goal 1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Goal 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Goal 3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Goal 4 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Goal 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Goal 6 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all Goal 7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all Goal 8 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive

employment and decent work for all

Goal 9 Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Goal 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable Goal 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Goal 14 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

Goal 15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels Goal 17 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for

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1 Introduction

1.1 Background

On 17 December 2020, Swedish Parliament (Sveriges Riksdag) voted on the adoption of Government bill ‘proposition 2019/20:188’ on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, submitted by the Ministry of the Environment on 17 June 2020 (Prop.

2019/20:188). Two years earlier, the Government had adopted an Action Plan for the 2030 Agenda, stating that Sweden had set out to take a leading role in the Agenda’s implementation – not only nationally, but also internationally. While about 200 such propositions are

submitted to Riksdagen every year, not all of them are intended to initiate paradigm shifts encompassing most aspects of daily life on a global scale, which is why many law-making processes may seem rather innocuous. A proposition like the 2030 Agenda bill, on the other hand, has already had a massive impact before its actual adoption. In the Sustainable

Development Progress Rapport 2020 compiled by the Sustainable Development Solutions

Network (SDSN), Sweden is cited as no. 1 in a global ranking covering all of the Agenda’s 17 goals, with a score of 84.72 % performance overall (Sachs, et al., 2020) – a result observed accordingly by the Swedish press in July 2020 (Boman, 2020).

Meanwhile, together with a comprehensive list of other stakeholders, the Swedish Agency for Participation (Myndigheten för Delaktighet, MfD), a governmental agency with the mission to foster respect for persons with disabilities, had been asked to participate in the consultation procedure for the committee report leading to proposition 2019/20:188. They responded in June 2019 that the disabilities perspective was missing in all parts, that this perspective was neither established nor visible in the Swedish work carried out on the 2030 Agenda although Sweden had ratified it in its entirety, including its disability-inclusive targets (Myndigheten för Delaktighet, 2019). While the Sustainable Development Progress Rapport

2020 report states in its imprint that ‘the views expressed in this report do not reflect the

views of any organizations, agency or programme of the United Nations’, MfD, on the other hand, is an official agency of the Swedish Government. A search for the term ‘disabilities’ in the SDSN report has 0 results, which gives food for thought in terms of the overall

perspective as opposed to all other perspectives reflected by the Agenda’s goals, people with disabilities being one group among many affected by their implementation.

The Agenda’s implementation has become an ever increasingly salient issue since a principle referred to as ‘Sustainable Development’ first was conceptualized (see chapter 3).

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There is a global agreement to enforce it globally by 2030, and that notwithstanding its unenforceable nature. This turns the governance mechanisms involved into a fascinating puzzle waiting to be solved. In order to honour the Agenda’s agreement, ‘taking ownership’ means for sovereign governments that they must see to it that this effectively happens within their own sovereign territory, i.e., that the Agenda actually is implemented. At the same time, the concept of ‘indivisibility of goals’ entails that there may not be much freedom of choice.

The Agenda’s 17 goals (appendix 9.1) consist of altogether 169 targets. As the Agenda starts out from the pledge that no one shall be left behind, this thesis will focus on the policy area mentioned in the beginning, namely that of disabilities. With much of current research focusing on environmental policies, the choice fell on this less well-travelled territory in political science research, not least because of the widely different perspectives provided on the Agenda’s success in this policy area, which is stated as an explicit part of 11 targets (appendix 9.2). This is particularly relevant as the SDGs are supposed not to counteract one another or, in the worst case, cancel out one another. In addition, disabilities are a policy area currently closely scrutinised in Sweden. A crucial part of the applicable national legislation is undergoing a political review process heavily discussed by political parties as well as public and private stakeholder organizations, all concerned about how any new or reformed

legislation may affect the quality and quantity of services delivered to its recipients.

1.2 Aim and research questions

With ten years at hand to achieve this within the complex system involved, the aim of this thesis is to trace the implementation of the Agenda’s disability-related goals down to one of its many frontlines, i.e., the local level in Sweden, by asking the following questions:

1. How and by whom is the 2030 Agenda transmitted from the global to the local level? 2. How are the relevant targets and goals interpreted and implemented at each level? 3. Does their implementation contribute to the Agenda’s global governance, and how?

1.3 Delimitations

It would go beyond the scope of the present thesis to fully investigate local SDG and target implementation in all Swedish municipalities. After examining what is actually being transferred how and by whom, two brief qualitative case studies will be presented, namely two Swedish municipalities with highly different prerequisites to accomplish a common goal that they share with the 288 remaining municipalities and 21 regions in Sweden. Once this has been done, the same process can be used to follow up on other goals and targets.

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2 Literature Review

We have recently entered the Agenda’s remaining ‘decade of action’ dedicated to succeeding with its implementation, but it was immediately overshadowed by the outbreak of a pandemic. Quite expectedly, there is a wealth of research articles available on the 2030 Agenda and/or SDGs, with many of the most recent ones also dealing with the effects of Covid-19. The purpose of this review is to position the present thesis towards the main research themes already broached and sharing the same context. Web of Science renders 28 articles with bearing on the goals’ disability targets, mostly empirical case studies, the most cited ones belonging into rehabilitation, medicine and educational research, but covering many other fields as well, offering new avenues for further scrutiny. Google Scholar, although less transparent in terms of presentation, renders some relevant top-ranking results, too.

Madansa et al. (2017) want to produce data that ‘can be used to assess a country’s compliance with the UN Convention [on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)] and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and, over time, monitor their improvement in meeting the established requirements’ (Madansa, et al., 2017, p. 1164). Their conclusion is that, if we want to know whether SDGs relevant to disabilities have been met and UNCRPD implemented, countries must ‘demonstrate that persons with disabilities are enjoying the same rights as those without disabilities and are able to fully participate in society’ (Madansa, et al., 2017, p. 1178). They suggest that outcome indicators must be disaggregated by disability, meaning that the relevant result databases must measure implementation levels according to disability status. Ikenyei & Amaechi (2020) argue that UNCRPD must be ‘implemented and monitored’ and that the Convention is a ‘strong legal framework to advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities’. In their view, the role of the 2030 Agenda is to provide a ‘political momentum to push for the realization’ of the Convention, since the latter is legally binding while the Agenda is not, but that they are both ‘clearly inclusive of persons with disabilities and can be used as an advocacy platform’ (Ikenyei & Amaechi, 2020, p. 91). In an article on The 2030 Agenda and both social and work inclusion also for people with intellectual

disability, Malaguti (2019) points out that the Agenda addresses the interconnections between disability and sustainable development, that issues related to disability are recognized as cross-cutting issues related to education, growth and employment, inequalities, accessibility to human settlements, data collection and their monitoring (Malaguti, 2019, p. 322). She

concludes that job placements, no matter whether they lead to full or partial employment, can become indicators of progressing social inclusion, and that the transition to adult life for

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people with intellectual disabilities requires the cooperation between the business world, social cooperation and institutions traditionally responsible for job placements (2019, p. 329).1

After whetting the list further for political science and connections to Sweden, the highest-ranked result is an article authored by members of the Resilience Alliance (Norström, et al., 2014), which argues that three aspects should be taken into account while setting sustainable development goals: an integrated social-ecological systems perspective; trade-offs to be made between ambition and feasibility, and, thirdly, that ‘the goal-setting exercise and the management of goal implementation need to be guided by existing knowledge about the principles, dynamics, and constraints of social change processes at all scales, from the individual to the global’ (Norström, et al., 2014, p. 1).2_{They conclude that, as opposed to the}

Millennium Goals, which had focused on development countries, the ‘SDGs need buy-in from all nations’ and must be ‘taken and implemented at multiple levels of governance’, with ‘a broad participatory process’ (2014, p. 8).

Fisher & Fukuda-Parr (2019) point out that the SDGs can ‘alter power relations, affect the distribution of resources, reorganize national and local priorities, create perverse

incentives for performance, and produce narratives that shape thinking and communication’ (Fisher & Fukuda-Parr, 2019, p. 375). In their introductory article to a set of five case studies on the localization of SDGs, one among them dealing with national reporting in Sweden, they cite their major theme as ‘global goals as a tool of global governance and their disruptive effects on power structures’ (2019, p. 375). They later point out, the ‘reality of policy translation was quite different’ among different countries so that, Sweden, for instance, uses the term ‘low income’ instead of ‘poverty’ in accordance with ‘pre-existing policies’ an ‘professional practices’ (2019, p. 380). According to Bexell & Jönsson (2018) in Fisher & Fukuda-Parr, ‘a group of ten statisticians within Statistics Sweden were charged with mapping the availability of data and suggesting “alternative SDGs indicators suitable for Swedish context”’ (Fisher & Fukuda-Parr, 2019, p. 379). They claim that ‘public reporting on SDGs did not challenge Swedish status quo approach to development and was found to have little impact on domestic hierarchical systems of accountability’ (2019, p. 380). They conclude that

1_{Translated from Italian and indirectly quoted by means of Google Translate}

2_{The Resilience Alliance is, according to their homepage, ‘an international, multidisciplinary research}

organization that explores the dynamics of social-ecological systems’ and publishes the peer-reviewed open access journal Ecology & Society (Resilience Alliance, 2021). Their members are ‘active researchers and leaders in the fields of social-ecological systems, resilience, adaptation, and transformation’ (Resiliance Alliance, 2021).

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two levels emerge: one that is depoliticized and handled by experts, and one that allows for ‘political theatre’ i.e., commitment to sustainable development or criticism thereof, while ‘questions about which data is used, who participates in its analysis, and through which process the analytic outputs are interpreted’ remain to be addressed (2019, p. 384).

Bexell & Jönsson (2017) raise ‘key issues and concerns emerging from the way

responsibility is framed in two key SDG documents’, i.e. both the 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Agenda (the latter the action plan adopted to guarantee financing for sustainable development), and claim that neither ‘power relations’ nor ‘historical circumstances’ and their effect on ‘current degrees of responsibility’ have been properly addressed by these (2017, p. 26). They point out that the sheer number of obligations agreed upon can cause a number of ‘goal conflicts at all governance levels’, while the role of non-governmental actors and individuals is much less clear. Therefore, the aspect of responsibility in its three facets, namely cause, obligation and accountability, is a major issue since the ambition is ‘to obtain far-reaching global change for the coming 15 years’ while responsibility ‘remains state-centric with great room for state sovereignty, self-regulation and respect for national circumstances’ (2017, p. 26). Bexell & Jönsson also reflect that the answer may lie with a government but can also be an international organization or a business association, and that goal conflicts and limited resources make that some guidance clearly is required (2017, p. 26).

This scoping review is not intended to be exhaustive, but it provides a number of themes to be borne in mind while solving the initial puzzle of why there may be incompatible views on the reported success of a country like Sweden in terms of 2030 Agenda implementation. They help us frame the theoretical context that can help us solve our puzzle, which is twofold. On the one hand, these articles deal with governance: shifting power distributions and new types of steering mechanisms, binding legislation versus non-binding agreements, the necessity of ‘buy-in’ from all nations, mixed vertical and horizontal relationships,

responsibility as cause, obligation or accountability, depoliticization vs political momentum, multiple private and public stakeholders, among other things. On the other hand, they deal with issues surrounding actual implementation and reporting, in terms of disaggregation of indicators, interconnectedness of goals, ambition versus feasibility, conflicting goals, necessary trade-offs, and so forth.

The necessity of real-world implementation makes understanding this necessity the first prerequisite for action, which is why we will focus on the change of governance and the

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3 Theoretical framework

3.1 The change of governance

3.1.1 Global governance and cosmopolitan democracy

Sustainable Development (SD) stretches from a challenge that first was set in an entirely different era and still remains to be met 50 years later. In order to comprehend its current complexity, I suggest that the governance of the 2030 Agenda must be seen against the backdrop of the history of globalization. Globalization is the ‘intensification of global connectedness - political, economic, military and cultural – and the changing character of political authority’ (Kaldor, 2007, p. 4). In her book on new and old wars, Kaldor argued that globalization literature problematizes the future of the modern state and its erosion in terms of the monopoly on legitimate organized violence (2007, p. 5). In her concluding chapter on Governance, Legitimacy and Security, three possible scenarios for the future are proposed (2007, p. 191): the clash of civilizations based on Huntingdon (1993) or anarchy based on Kaplan (1997) on the one hand, which both entail that there is no control over the shifting power balance among all actors globally, whereas cosmopolitan governance based on Falk (1995), on the other hand, instead of a ‘world government’ (which would be the ultimate top-down approach), would be based on political entities ranging from local authorities via state governments and continental organs (EU being one among many) operating ‘within a set of accepted rules’ and ‘certain standards of international behaviour’ (2007, p. 188). In this worldview, the source of legitimacy of cosmopolitan governance is humanism and its institutions are local, national and transnational, while its constituting parts remain the same as in other types of governance, namely nation-states, at entirely different levels of

democratization and with different social, cultural, political and religious prerequisites (2007, p. 192). Where we are going, in Kaldor’s concluding words, ‘depends entirely on our own behaviour’ (2007, p. 194).

3.1.2 Hierarchical implementation of complex changes: a man on the moon

‘Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men

must fully share.’

John F. Kennedy, Joint Session of Congress, 25 May 1961

This sentence of JFK’s historical ‘Urgent National Needs’ speech preceded the US President’s quest for the vast funds necessary to land ‘a man on the Moon’ and return him ‘safely to earth’ (Kennedy, 1961, p. 67). The same speech referred to the necessity of new technologies, new materials, new processes, entirely new ways of thinking, as well as the

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inadmissibility of failing cooperation or lacking commitment in a project that would require the joint effort of the entire population. The parallels between the 1960’s space race to the Moon and our ongoing race to eradicate poverty and injustice while saving the climate may be too obvious but, in order to succeed with a self-imposed plan to save the world, much has to be invented, discarded and reinvented, at a level of ambition that requires shared dedication and collaboration. The different phases of the project and their complex interdependence are presented transparently for the world to witness, understand, and then harness. The Apollo programme received its national funding as a response to the Soviet Union’s technological leadership during the Cold War but, just as much as in the race against climate change and poverty, the stakes were perceived as global and all-encompassing even then. The same year as the moon landing (1969), the United Nations General Assembly took a decision to hold the UN Conference on the Human Environment, later to be known as the Stockholm conference. 3.1.3 From Stockholm to Sustainable Development Goals

In 1972, three years after Neil Armstrong’s first step on the surface of the Moon, Barbara Ward (a friend of Kennedy’s and founder of the International Institute for

Environment and Development [IIED]) wrote what (according to IIED) can be considered ‘the first and best definition of sustainable development’, namely the need ‘clearly to define what should be done to maintain the earth as a place suitable for human life not only now, but also for future generations’ (International Institute for Environment and Development, 2014). A link between these two seminal visions for the future of humankind can be intuited, and they are used as a historical background for this paper dealing with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. According to McCormick (1991) in Borowy (2019, p. 87), The Stockholm Conference came about because ‘with close to all countries of the world being sovereign states and members of the UN, it was no longer possible, as in the 1960s, to work or speak on an issue of global relevance while ignoring two-thirds of the global population’ (2019, p. 105).

15 years later, the report by the Brundtland commission, which was spearheaded by some of the same people as the Stockholm conference (cf. Borowy 2019) and called Our

Common Future (United Nations, 1987), introduced the concept of sustainability based on the

interdependence of economic growth, natural resources and social equity, which subsequently had a crucial impact on the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio (the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development). In its last chapter, ‘Towards Common Action: Proposals for Institutional and Legal Change’, a subsection on ‘New Imperatives for International

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Cooperation’ states that ’national boundaries have become so porous that traditional

distinctions between local, national, and international issues have become blurred’. The report subsequently points out that ‘although international law related to environment has evolved rapidly since the 1972 Stockholm Conference’, the question arises what to do with an international system that ’cannot prevent one or several states’ from doing ecological (or other) harm while the ‘UN system has come under increasing attack for either proposing to do too much or, more frequently, for apparently doing too little’ (United Nations, 1987, p. 258f). Six priorities were proposed for institutional change at the national, regional and international levels (1987, p. 259). After the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was founded in 1993 to promote and implement the summit’s outcomes, and with that also Agenda 21.

The action plan Agenda 21 was adopted by ‘more than 178 Governments’ in 1992 with the purpose of subsequently being adopted at local, national, regional and international levels. A detailed review of Agenda 21 by the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future (SF) from 2012 states that ‘UNCED recognized that actors beyond nation-states shape global realities’ (2012, p. 150). In the introduction to their collection of descriptive studies on the local

implementation of Agenda 21, Lafferty and Eckerberg point out that Agenda 21 section III on the role of major groups, and specifically chapter 28 on local authorities, gives the latter a ‘key role’ ‘to take responsibility for introducing, interpreting, adapting and eventually implementing the most relevant aspects of Agenda 21 for their local communities’ (2009, p. 2). In the chapter on Sweden, Eckerberg et al. state that a long way remained towards ‘policy-making and politics at local as well as national levels of government’ in Sweden (2009, pp. 66-67). Among many other points, they mention perceived ‘lack of political leadership’ (2009, p. 68) and a ‘lack of correspondence between the visions and policy goals expressed in different environmental action programmes, and the actual municipal politics in important areas’ (2009, p. 69). The authors also point out that the Brundtland report had not made a deep mark in Sweden and that Swedish local authorities were altogether satisfied with their Agenda 21 results.

In September 2000, all UN member states signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration, with eight interdependent goals to achieve by 2015 in order to ‘combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women’ (World Health Organization, 2018). Taking stock at the end of this period, then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stated that the MDGs ‘helped to lift more than one billion people out

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of extreme poverty, but he continued later that ‘we need to tackle root causes and do more to integrate the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development’ (United Nations, 2015, p. 3). A 30-member Open Working Group (OWG) of the General Assembly (with input from Major Groups and Other Stakeholders) was given the task to propose a set of SDGs (Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, 2014). The 2030 Agenda was adopted in September 2015 (United Nations). Five years later, the UN Secretary-General convened the ‘first SDG Moment of the Decade of Action’ as a ‘launchpad’ to deliver 17 global SDGs (UN, 2020). Like Agenda 21, it is neither legally binding nor unenforceable. Its 193 signatories are ‘expected to take ownership’ and to create national frameworks for implementation in order to ensure success. ‘All stakeholders: governments, civil society, the private sector, and others, are expected to contribute to the realisation of the new agenda’ (Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future, 2012).

3.2 The implementation of change

3.2.1 Who sets the goals?

To summarize the previous section, one major difference between the space race and the climate race is that the space race was conducted within the confines of US American borders under the hierarchic leadership of a president, whereas the SD race requires all stakeholders to (albeit willingly) comply. The Brundtland Commission claimed that the UN was both

criticized at the time for doing too much and too little and that institutional changes were required. Lack of political leadership was mentioned as a criticism of Agenda 21. The 2030 Agenda expects all stakeholders to contribute, which makes everyone a leader, in some way.

The Agenda’s preamble lifts five areas of critical importance: people, planet, prosperity,

peace, and partnership (the 5ps). The SDGs are followed by a range of 12 articles on

implementation and 20 on follow-up and review at the national, regional and global level, with the sub-regional and local level mentioned as part of the process of regional and national processes. There are different possible relationships among all parts involved. Ahrne & Brunsson (2005) propose a theory on meta-organizations as organizations consisting of other organizations rather than of individuals and discuss how that fact impacts on an organization’s creation and survival, reactions to conflict within organizations and their reaction to

organizational change (2005, p. 429). Among the incentives for organizations to be part of any meta-organization, they cite sharing its purpose and interests, valuing its activities and results, using it to facilitate cooperation with other members, but also as an engine for external influence, social status and inclusion rather than exclusion (2005, p. 433f). However, since a

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crucial reason to join a meta-organization can be to improve just these factors, ‘important’ organizations, meaning those most beneficial to the meta-organization, may deem it

unbeneficial to join. Also, the ‘nature and efficacy’ of a meta-organization will be ‘affected by the identity of its members’, which they claim is the case for the EU, for instance (2005, p. 437). On the upside, if meta-organizations succeed in their endeavour to recruit all ‘important’ organizations, or rather nearly all organizations, the only alternative beside joining is being left alone – so that the result is a meta-organization’s monopoly in its own area (2005, p. 439). The UN and the EU would be examples of such a one.

Ahrne & Brunsson argue further that the nature of a meta-organization entirely

motivated by other organizations with their own complex systems and leaders, respectively, entails that, rather than directives, it will deliver standards, recommendations and so forth, because that is less problematic than constant bargaining among all parties, at the same time as implementation can be sent on to the next lower level (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2005, p. 442). They conclude by answering their own question of how such attempts succeed despite a meta-organization’s ‘relatively weak central authority’, as they subsequently comment, by pointing out that such a type of organization, though it may be ‘ineffective in the short run’, will ‘tend to gain importance in the longer term’ (2005, p. 447). More importantly, when it comes to organisational theory, they claim that ‘a centre of responsibility has been established’ meaning that no matter how weak the central authority, the meta-organization assumes a position of responsibility corroborated by all its member organizations (2005, p. 448).

Likewise, in an article on ‘Organizational Ecology and Institutional Change in Global Governance’, Abbott et al. (2016) point out that global governance has ‘changed dramatically in recent years’, in particular ‘within the UN system’, but also due to the creation of many other intergovernmental institutions (IGOs), European institutions, and the signing of multilateral treaties, e.g., agreements on the environment (2016, p. 247). While the development of these types of structures has diminished, they also state that ‘new

organizational forms, in contrast, have emerged and expanded rapidly’, with new informal institutions, clubs (they name G20 and other G-groups) and similar joining their ranks (2016, p. 248). As a result of ‘institutional fragmentation’, there are new ‘meta-institutions’ that have been established by states in order ‘to coordinate other entities’, with ‘transgovernmental institutions’, ‘subnational governments’ with ‘transnational networks’, ‘transnational public-private partnerships (PPPs)’ and, more recently, ‘public-private transnational regulatory

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The authors take recourse to ‘organizational ecology’ which they consider ‘primarily a structural theory’, in contrast to other organizational theories, and point out that it ‘highlights the constraints and opportunities that institutional environments create’ (2016, p. 250f). As they conclude, what they call an ‘institutional revolution’ may have a strong impact on the future of governance, not only in terms of climate (2016, p. 271). They also point out,

however, that these ‘new opportunities’ for international governance (also giving a chance to ‘civil society, business, workers, technical experts, and other private actors’ to add their knowledge and experience) ‘tend to bypass government control and traditional notions of democracy’ (2016, p. 272).

3.2.2 How are the goals transferred to the next level down?

At each level, there will not be one homogeneous way to face change. It will be influenced and coloured by the information available, just as much as by the individuals expected to implement it. In an article on sustainable production, Tukker & Butter study transitions in the sense of ‘radical systems innovations that usually take 1-2 generations’ (Tucker & Butter, 2005/2007, p. 94). They present ‘ways to change the world’ when faced with the need to set such massive changes into motion: hermitic, fatalist, hierarchist,

individualist, and egalitarian. These positions, which stem from Cultural Theory, circumscribe how an individual is shaped by the group he/she belongs to and which other ‘prescriptions’ determine an individual’s life, which results in five possible five forms of social organization (2005/2007, p. 97). While the ‘hermit’ voluntarily escapes all ‘social involvement’ and the fatalist involuntarily does the same by refusing the possibility of change for the better, the other three seek a pattern that will allow to bring about the change they desire. This search for a pattern can either result in a group with strong boundaries and strong prescriptions, which will produce hierarchical relationships, a group with strong boundaries and few prescriptions, which will produce egalitarian relationships, or a group without boundaries or prescriptions, which will produce individuals who need to re-examine their relationships for each new instance that requires action as a group.

According to Tucker & Butter, the vision that this thesis put forth as scene-setting for paradigm-shifting changes, namely that of JFK’s sending a man to the moon, is a typical hierarchist position, since it came with a clear-cut order and plan to be executed (2005/2007, p. 97f). The individualist, being quite the opposite, may assume that optimism and ingenuity will bring forth the necessary solutions for sustainable development (2005/2007, p. 98). The egalitarian individual may assume that ‘no actor is dominant enough to enforce change’.

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Therefore, an arena must be developed in which all ‘pro-active members of all societal actor coalitions are represented’ in a process described as ‘learning by doing, doing by learning’, without a fixed roadmap (2005/2007, p. 99). Following Tucker & Butter, there was not much practical experience with egalitarian processes in transition management at the time of writing, even less when it comes to deliberately organizing processes as egalitarian (ibid). At the same time as they describe that no one approach is best overall, different approaches can be better at different stages i.e., that an egalitarian pattern can be used to lead all actors to understand the problem that makes the transition necessary, while other patterns (hierarchical, individualist) may come into play when the transition is put into motion (2005/2007, p. 100f). Likewise, a fatalist position may evolve into hierarchist or egalitarian one if the necessity becomes obvious e.g., because disaster strikes nearby.

3.2.3 The multilevel perspective

In his volume on implementation in politics and administration from 2017, Swedish political scientist and implementation expert Vedung dedicates a chapter to multilevel

implementation at the higher and medium level that raises the issue of how the different levels on the way down to local authorities interact with each other (2017, p. 81). In Sweden, these levels, which he refers to as geographical spaces (territories), encompass the path from the global, European, national, intraregional, municipal to the sub-municipal level, all (eight of them in the case of Sweden) with their own political-administrative organizations (ibid). According to Lundquist (1987) in Vedung, at each level, there is a necessity for those expected to implement change to comprehend the actual intervention, to want to execute it, and to be able to/have the resources to actually do it (2017, p. 83). When arriving at the local frontline level, the intervention may therefore have changed shape according to these three aspects referred to as understanding, will and ability (förstå, vilja, kunna).

Vedung describes multi-level governance as an interaction among different levels, in the process of which each one responds to the governance level above, and in turn has an impact on the next level below. As an example, he names climate agreements forged in the global space that will have to be processed all the way down to the frontline level of bureaucracy and to its final recipient: the citizen (2017, p. 78). At the end of the day, there will be frontline bureaucrats who have been given the task to implement goals that were decided on by entirely different people at an entirely different level elsewhere, and may have changed considerably along the way, yet with the express ambition, mission and/or obligation to locally make citizens cooperate or and/or comply with measures aimed at fulfilling the agreement.

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4 Method and material

4.1 Method

4.1.1 Research design

193 countries have signed an agreement to reach 169 targets. We want to know how the latter are transmitted to the local level in Sweden and implemented there in order to meet those goals in the Agenda dealing with disabilities. Based on the theoretical framework presented above, we want to know what levels there are, what organisations are involved at what level and how the goals and targets involving disability are formulated at each of those levels. Then we want to know whether they are based on a hierarchist, egalitarian or

individualist principle, i.e., whether goal implementation is dealt with as mandatory, cooperative, optional or not at all. And, finally, we want to know how the goals are formulated and implemented at the local level, i.e., in which way the goals and targets are supposed to be met and thereby contribute to the global governance of the 2030 Agenda.

Geographical spaces (according to Vedung)

§ Space 1: Global political-administrative level § Space 5: Regional (intraregional) § Space 2: EU political-administrative level

(interregional)

§ Space 6: EU regions in Sweden (interregional)

§ Space 3: Northern Europe § Space 7: Local

§ Space 4: Sweden (national) § Space 8: Sub-local

Questions asked of the documents in each space

§ What Type of owner Meta-organization, interest group, authority etc § How Type of governance Hierarchical, egalitarian, individualist etc

§ What SDGs Impact on/occurrence of SDG goals/targets

§ How SDGs understanding, will and ability

Since this involves a significant number of official documents, the proposed method is that of textual analysis. The first part of this analysis has already been presented in a scoping review of relevant themes. Through covering the transfer from the international to the local level, Chapter 5 is common to all Swedish municipalities in most parts. Within the limited scope of this thesis, it is impossible to cover all. The last step is completed by a brief qualitative case study in two municipalities in Sweden with very different preconditions.

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4.1.2 Scoping Review

The purpose of a scoping search is to gain an ‘overall picture of the types of literature that may contribute to answering your question’ (Booth, et al., 2016, p. 114). According to Booth et al, there is a growing interest in systematic literature reviews, which have their basis in evidence-based research as known from medicine, for instance. The reason is that the growing wealth of available literature and electronic tools makes it increasingly necessary to systematize access to and use of existing research results. In an article on ‘Guidance for conducting systematic scoping reviews’, Peters et al. point out that ‘scoping reviews are therefore particularly useful when a body of literature has not yet been comprehensively reviewed or exhibits a complex or heterogeneous nature not amenable to a more precise systematic review of the evidence’ (Peters, et al., 2015, p. 141). They continue by saying that scoping reviews can be undertaken as a first step towards a systematic literature review, but also ‘as exercises in and of themselves to summarize and disseminate research findings, to identify research gaps, and to make recommendations for the future research’ (2015, p. 141). They use the term ‘reconnaissance’ as one of its objectives, and a scoping search has been used to reconnoitre this particular terrain, which is presented in the literature review. 4.1.3 Qualitative research

This thesis is grounded in a pragmatic explorative perspective. As Creswell & Poth point out, ‘pragmatist researchers look to the “what” and “how” of research based on its intended consequences – where they want to go with it’ (2018, p. 27). They add that a pragmatic worldview will lead to using ‘multiple methods of data collection to best answer the research question’, ‘employing ‘multiple sources’, focusing ‘on the practical implications of the research’. Also, they write that ‘we conduct qualitative research because a problem or issue needs to be explored’ (2018, p. 45). Exploration can take many guises, of course. But Creswell & Poth complement their statement on qualitative research with a number of conditions, among which: ‘… and a complex, detailed understanding of the issue is needed’, ‘… and a lack of fit between quantitative measures and the problem exists’, and ‘… and a desire to empower individuals exists’ (2018, p. 46). In our case, the problem depicted in the introduction is that the same Agenda, which is a highly complex construct in itself, is seen from two opposing perspectives: one in which Sweden has nearly fulfilled its entire obligation, and one that claims that Sweden has missed out entirely on a crucial part of the same, the latter with respect to a part of the population that is among the least empowered to

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exist. A pragmatist, according to Creswell & Poth, does ‘not see the world as an absolute unity’ and she is ‘not committed to any one system of philosophy and reality’ (2018, p. 27). 4.1.4 Content analysis

When there is a large base of documents to distil into useable information, we need to know how to systematically approach it, and while a scoping search uses a deductive

approach in order to see what is out there on a particular subject, so to speak, the population of texts used for content analysis presupposes that the correct documents are already known. ‘Content analysis involves the systematic analysis of textual information’ that is subsequently called an ‘unobtrusive method of data collection’ (Halperin & Heath, 2012, p. 318). As opposed to other types of ‘obtrusive’ collection, Halperin & Heath consider that content analysis is less prone to personal bias, interview effects and the like. It does, however, require that the evidence you are looking for is ‘at least partially embodied in texts’ (2012, p. 319). It also requires that you examine the correct documents. In our case, we want to study how the area of disabilities has been handled in the 2030 Agenda and transmitted via several levels. Therefore, we are dealing with a qualitative content analysis rather than with a quantitative one. We do not want to know ‘how many’ or ‘how often’, we want to determine ‘what’ and ‘how’ from existing source documents. Halperin & Heath propose four steps for such an analysis (2012, p. 320ff): 1) Select both the population of texts you will use and how much, i.e. what documents are ‘germane’ to the research question, 2) define categories for what you will examine the texts for, 3) choose the recording unit for the segments of text to examine (word, sentence etc), and 4) create a coding protocol.

4.1.5 Qualitative case studies using unstructured interviews

The purpose of a brief concluding case study in two municipalities is, as a last step, to test the knowledge gained through this paper on two frontline bureaucrats fulfilling the same function, namely in charge of local 2030 Agenda implementation, but under very different preconditions. The aim is thus not to evaluate or judge local performance, it is to gage the targets and indicators used locally against the original input transferred to the local level, to interview the person in charge on how disability issues are included in their strategy and implementation. That is why the method chosen was that of unstructured interviews with a number of open questions sent to the two interviewees in advance. The approach chosen to identify these interviewees was that of Most Different Systems Design following Przeworski & Teune 1970 in (Halperin & Heath, 2012, pp. 209, 212 ff), noting that there is a clear selection bias. The objective was to investigate two local authorities with entirely different

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preconditions, which in this case were ‘among the largest/ smallest’; ‘’among the outmost southern/outmost northern’; ‘advanced/non-advanced implementation of the 2030 Agenda’; ‘among the highest/lowest population density’. Malmö was the one among three possible largest municipalities who responded, and Boden, although it fits as ‘most different to

Malmö’, is also the author’s place of residence. Therefore, both choices were both pragmatic, yet also deemed appropriate, and both have the same duty to enact the Agenda.

4.1.6 Operationalization

1) The literature review has been conducted by means of a scoping search for keywords in order to gain an overview of literature dealing with SDGs/disabilities 2) Content analysis

The content analysis is conducted on primary documents on SDGs

a. The population of texts for content analysis will be organized using Vedung’s multilevel perspective and geographical spaces

b. The categories examined will be

• What: Meta-organization, interest group, authority etc • How: Hierarchical, egalitarian, individualist etc • How: Impact on /occurrence of SDG goals/targets

c. The recording unit will be sentences dealing with these categories and those mentioning persons with disabilities

d. The coding protocol will consist of these categories

3) Unstructured interviews at the local level have been conducted to get an insight into frontline implementation.

4.2 Material

4.2.1 Search results of scoping review (Appendix 9.4)

4.2.2 Population of documents for content analysis in chapter 5 (Appendix 9.5)

The documents examined here show organizations involved, the type of decision-making they are able to deliver, and their handling of/influence on how the SDGs and indicators came about and were subsequently transferred to the next level. The list does not claim to be exhaustive. It is used to trace disability goals, targets and indicators, by means of documents ‘germane to the research question’, examined by geographical space.

4.2.3 Concluding case studies

Interview transcripts with person in charge of 2030 Agenda in Malmö and Boden, from a one-hour digital meeting via MS Teams, respectively (Appendix 9.3).

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5 Disability in the SDGs (ref. Appendices 9.1 – 9.2)

Among the 169 targets, 11 refer to disabilities (SDG 1, 4, 8, 10, 11, 16), but other SDGs are dealt with at different levels, too. Also, as mentioned, ‘poverty’ was changed to ‘low income’ in Sweden according to national custom (Fisher & Fukuda-Parr, 2019, p. 380), so special attention will be paid to 1.3.1. and its disaggregation by population groups.

SDG 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere 1.3 Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable

1.3.1 Proportion of population covered by social protection floors/systems, by sex, distinguishing children, unemployed persons, older persons, persons with disabilities, pregnant women, newborns, work-injury victims and the poor and the vulnerable

5.1 Space 1: global

The global space consists of the United Nations and organisations within the UN system as well as two international stakeholder groups, one a Major Group representing people with disabilities, the other one a global solutions network with multiple stakeholders.

5.1.1 UN General Assembly (GA)

In the articles of the UN declaration to adopt the 2030 Agenda (UN General Assembly, 2015), people with disabilities are mentioned in the section on the New Agenda: § 19

(reaffirming the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), § 23 (people who are vulnerable must be empowered), § 25 (inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels), which is later reflected in the according goals (4, 8, 10, 11). In addition, target 18 of SDG 17 intends to enhance ‘capacity-building support to developing countries’ in order to give them the practical means required to report the necessary data to monitor progress. The GA, which in § 91 reaffirms its ’unwavering commitment to achieving this Agenda’ and to utilize it ‘to the full to transform our world for the better by 2030’, encourages all member states to ‘develop as soon as practicable ambitious national responses’ (78), ‘conduct regular and inclusive reviews of progress at the national and sub-national levels which are country-led and country-driven’, ‘draw on contributions from indigenous peoples, civil society, the

private sector and other stakeholders, in line with national circumstances, policies and priorities’ and adds that ‘national parliaments as well as other institutions can also support these processes’ (79). The GA encourages ‘all member states to identify the most suitable regional forum in which to engage’ (81).

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5.1.2 Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators In March 2016, the IAEG-SDG, ‘composed of Member States and including regional and international agencies as observers’ (United Nations Statistics Division, 2021) presented an overview of the work carried out with the purpose of proposing a set of ‘global indicators for follow-up and review’ of the 2030 Agenda (United Nations Economic and Social Council, 2015, p. 1). The group stated that, for comparability, it is ‘expected that global indicators will form the core of all other sets of indicators’ and that ‘some of the experience with regional,

national and sub-national and thematic monitoring’ had been taken into account (2015, p. 12).In

the section on ‘Leaving no one behind’, the IADG-SDG agrees on a necessary disaggregation by ‘income, sex, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability and geographic location, or other characteristics’ (2015, p. 13). The concluding proposal is for the UN Statistics

Commission to adopt the indicator framework proposed (2015, p. 14). According to Annex III of this document, the seven (7) targets naming disabilities should be monitored by means of nine (9) of 231 indicators. The list adopted contained 11 instead of 9, with disaggregation added to two further indicators (Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators, 2016).

5.1.3 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF)

The HLPF is the main UN platform on sustainable development, under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and with a ‘central role in the follow-up and review of 2030 Agenda and SDGs’. It has convened annually since 2013 and ‘adopts

intergovernmentally negotiated political declarations’ (SDG Knowledge Platform, 2021). The

Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 (United Nations, 2021) was presented at the HLFP 2020. Although based on data compiled for the period before the start of the pandemic, it also includes information on its impact on goal and target realization (2021, p. 3). SDG 4 highlights that ‘prolonged absence from school’ is going to have particularly negative consequences for people already disadvantaged, including persons with disabilities (2021, p. 32). SDG 8 points out that the unemployment rate is higher for persons with disabilities in 40 out of 59 countries ‘with recent and comparable data’ and that the pandemic will have

‘devastating consequences’ for those affected (2021, p. 41). SDG 10 shows that ‘the most vulnerable groups are being hit hardest by the pandemic’, including persons with disabilities (2021, p. 15). Goal 17 states that ‘existing patterns of discrimination may be entrenched by the crisis’, which is that ‘3 in 10 people with disabilities have experienced discrimination (2014–2019) (2021, p. 23). SDG 1 does not mention persons with disabilities in this report,

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however, while it refers to age, gender and vulnerable groups, and uses as indicators

‘Proportion of people living below $1.90 a day’, ‘Proportion of employed population living below $1.90 a day’ and ‘Proportion of vulnerable population receiving social assistance cash benefits, and unemployed persons receiving unemployment cash benefits’ (2021, p. 24). 5.1.4 UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)

UNDESA is charged with monitoring and evaluating disability-inclusive development (2016). Its UN Flagship Report 2018 on disability and development (2019) reports on all SDGs, not only those with targets explicitly asking for disaggregated data on persons with disabilities, and in its conclusions, the way forward is staked out as follows (2019, p. 285ff): addressing barriers causing exclusion of persons with disabilities; mainstreaming disability in SDG implementation; investing in progress monitoring and evaluation; strengthening the means of implementation, the latter concluding with the fact that more evolved

multi-stakeholder partnerships are required at all levels and that disaggregation by disability ‘would also benefit from more cooperation among various stakeholders’ (2019, p. 290).

5.1.5 Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities for Sustainable Development The SGPwD is a ‘recognized other stakeholder group’ of the UN, part of the ‘Major Groups’ and the ‘focal point’ for the UN Department of Economic Affairs (UNDESA), the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the UN General Assembly (GA) for all UN Sustainable Development policies (Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities for

Sustainable Development (SD), 2017, p. 1). The group’s responsibilities include the 2030 Agenda, SDGs, the HLPF, SD financing and UN ‘global and regional policy processes’. It is ‘under the leadership of the International Disability Alliance’ (IDA) mentioned above, and its mission is to ‘ensure the effective coordination of the participation of persons with disabilities in United Nations processes related to sustainable development and other processes’ (2017, p. 3). Working group B is in charge of ‘drafting position papers on sub-themes in line with SDGs goals under review (2017, p. 8). The terms also state that their policies are ‘aligned with the UNCRPD and the 2030 Agenda’ (2017, p. 10).

A comprehensive guide presented by two NGOs (IDA and the International Disability and Development Consortium) in 2016, points out that, due to the indivisibility of goals, altogether 13 goals are relevant to persons with disabilities, whereas the inclusiveness of leaving no one behind actually means that all 17 goals directly concern people with

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The guide also states that all SDG goals are linked to articles in the UNCRPD, which is binding to the countries that have ratified it.

In its report on this first fully virtual HLPF 2020, the SGPwD informs that the ‘inclusion of persons with disabilities at the HLPF has steadily increased since the 2016 HLPF (the first one following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda)’ and that COVID-19 had ‘highlighted those most affected, which includes persons with disabilities’ (2020, p. 4). The report focuses on SDGs 1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17 (2020, p. 10), more in keeping with the comprehensive IDA/IDDC guide mentioned above, which states that all goals refer to disabilities, though not all of them explicitly. The report concluded that ‘the inclusion of persons with disabilities in governance and decision-making processes’ is neglected and that the latter ‘are not considered political agents to be empowered, but rather as a marginalized group facing inequalities’ (2020, p. 45). The report also refers to the SDG Goals Progress Chart 2020 (global and regional) developed by UNDESA (2020), ‘based on data from

national statistical systems’, which shows indeed that ‘Developed Countries’ are well on their way to completing many of their goals as a whole, while this chart does not disaggregate among countries or population groups. One source named in this report, SDSN’s from July 2020, is the one cited in the introduction to this thesis claiming that Sweden tops the global list in terms of SDG implementation.

5.1.6 Sustainable Development Solutions Network

According to SGPwD, the SDSN report ‘complements the official SDG indicators and voluntary country-led review processes’, but it is ‘not an official monitoring tool’ and uses ‘publicly available data published by official data providers (e.g., World Bank, WHO and ILO) and other organizations including research centers and NGOs’ (Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities for Sustainable Development, 2020, p. 46). Neither this report (Sachs, et al., 2020) nor its second edition from December 2020 (with information collected after the Covid-19 outbreak), disaggregate by population groups, which is not in line with disability stakeholder organizations asking for a more detailed picture of the situation. The indicators used for SDG 1 are ‘Poverty headcount ratio USD 1.90/2.30’ and ‘Poverty rates after taxes and transfers’ (Sachs, et al., 2020, p. 435)

5.2 Space 2: EU political-administrative level (interregional)

This space includes the EU system, i.e., the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, Eurostat, a European disabilities stakeholder organization and the European part of SDSN.

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5.2.1 European Commission (EC)

‘In the run-up to the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, the Commission worked closely with the Member States to ensure an ambitious global outcome’ (European Commission, 2021). In a communication from the EC to the European Parliament, the Council, the European

Economic and Social committee and the Committee of the Regions, the EC suggested that ‘the EU needs to engage fully in the forthcoming international processes with coherent and coordinated inputs at the UN and in other relevant fora’ and ‘support moving towards a post-2015 overarching framework’ (2013, p. 14). They cite the following in terms of disabilities: internationally, the rights of persons with disabilities should be mainstreamed in EU

development policies and the UNCRPD implemented and the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 in the EU (2013, p. 18). Actions to ‘deliver productive employment and decent work for all, including youth, women and people with disabilities’ are to be ‘stimulated’ by the goals (2013, p. 9). In ‘An overarching post-2015 framework’, the Council of the European Union adopted the conclusions proposed by this communication and emphasized, among other things, that the ‘three interrelated dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental)’ are to be ‘integrated in a balanced way (Council of The European Union, 2013, p. 4). Disabilities were not mentioned explicitly.

In ‘A decent life for all: from vision to collective action’, the Commission proposes a vision and principles that entail ‘accountability’, implying the need for ‘regular reviews of progress, commitments and implementation through a robust institutional framework,

involving all stakeholders’ (EC, 2014, p. 4). People with disabilities are referred to in terms of health, education and employment (2014, p. 15). This communication and its predecessors are recognized as an important contribution by the subsequent ‘Council conclusions on a

transformative post-2015 agenda’ (Council of the European Union, 2014), in which the section on the ‘achieving a transformative agenda’ also states that ‘the agenda should leave no one behind’, referring to vulnerable groups, including those with disabilities (2014, p. 4). The ‘key elements’ according to the European Commission Fact Sheet on ‘Global Partnership for Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development after 2015’ focus on policy environment, institutional and personnel capacity, domestic and international finance, trade, science technology and innovation, domestic and international private sector, positive aspects of migration, as well as monitoring, accountability and review, which together should work towards ‘both poverty eradication and sustainable environment’ (European Commission, 2015, p. 2f). Vulnerable groups are not mentioned here, neither are disabilities.

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In its ‘Progress Report on the Implementation of the European Disability Strategy (2010 - 2020), the European Commission states as part of its main progress since 2010 its support to ‘mainstreaming’ ‘disability concerns in the Civil Protection Mechanism, during the

negotiations of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’ and the ‘adoption of a global thematic project which will develop the human rights' indicators of the UNCRPD and policy guidelines for the implementation of the SDGs in line with the Convention’ (2017, p. 14). The report concludes that ‘the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 puts forward a human rights approach of disability policies, in line with the UNCRPD’ (2017, p. 21). The table on the implementation of the strategy contains a comprehensive list of specific objectives and key actions, either completed (e.g., the European Accessibility Act) or ongoing (e.g. a global thematic project ‘Bridging the Gap I- Human Rights indicators for the CRPD in support of a disability inclusive 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’) (2017, p. 147).

5.2.2 European Parliament (EP)

The explanatory memorandum to the proposed ‘Directive of the European Parliament and of The Council on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States as regards the accessibility requirements for products and services’ from 2015 states that the proposed directive ‘supports Member States to achieve their national commitments as well as their obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) regarding accessibility’, the latter being one of the ‘priorities of the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020’ mentioned earlier

(European Commission, 2015, p. 2). It mentions that ‘Article 9 of the United Nations

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities obliges the EU and Member States, to the extent of its competences, as parties to the Convention, to take appropriate measures to ensure accessibility’ (2015, p. 4). That is why the European ‘Commission committed itself to prepare a European Accessibility Act’ in the Action Plan of the European Disability Strategy (2015, p. 5). The memorandum’s passage on the proposal’s legal elements points that, although the subsidiarity principle applies, ‘a common approach at EU level’ is required due to the ‘divergence of national legislations on accessibility requirements’, which is why a ‘coherent legal framework’ is necessary (2015, p. 8). The aim is to ‘prevent and dismantle existing obstacles in the internal market due to divergent national legislation’ and

consequently ‘guide Member States' compliance with the UNCRPD in what concerns

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2030 AGENDA IN SWEDEN