Table Of ContentUnderstanding the Spillovers
and Transboundary Impacts
of Public Policies
IMPLEMENTING THE 2030 AGENDA FOR MORE
RESILIENT SOCIETIES
Understanding
the Spillovers
and Transboundary Impacts
of Public Policies
IMPLEMENTING THE 2030 AGENDA FOR MORE
RESILIENT SOCIETIES
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Please cite this publication as:
OECD/EC-JRC (2021), Understanding the Spillovers and Transboundary Impacts of Public Policies: Implementing the 2030
Agenda for More Resilient Societies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/862c0db7-en.
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Foreword
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers a blueprint for a better world. Achieving the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires designing and implementing policies that benefit all
people in all countries. In today’s interconnected world, this means policies that systematically take into
account the interactions among the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable
development as well as the impacts of policies beyond national borders. This is critical not least for
addressing an increasing number of global transboundary challenges shaped by, for instance, large
volumes of international trade and financial flows, demographic pressures and migration, and pollution and
climate change.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further demonstrated the interconnectedness of our societies and
economies, resulting in disruptions of global supply chains and limited movement of people between
countries. Ensuring a sustainable recovery and systematically addressing spillovers and transboundary
impacts in domestic policy making requires strengthened governance mechanisms and capacities to
overcome fragmented action. Institutional mechanisms and tools for policy coherence for sustainable
development (PCSD), a key component of the OECD’s work on SDG governance, can boost governments’
capacity to account for policy impacts across sectors and borders.
This book brings together country experiences in promoting policy coherence and governance
mechanisms for the SDGs (Chapters 1-4) and new tools for assessing and measuring spillovers and
transboundary impacts (Chapters 5-11). Its goal is to help policy makers become more ‘globally competent’
by improving their ability to understand, anticipate and address unintended impacts of their policies. It
provides them with a collection of tools and good practices for designing coherent and co-ordinated policies
to implement the SDGs based on evidence.
The book is the result of a collaborative effort by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) and the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC). It presents the
findings of OECD and EC-JRC analysis along with those of independent researchers and scientists, to
stimulate international dialogue on how to build a more inclusive and resilient society that leaves no one
behind.
UNDERSTANDING THE SPILLOVERS AND TRANSBOUNDARY IMPACTS OF PUBLIC POLICIES © OECD/EUROPEAN UNION 2021
4
Acknowledgements
This report represents a collaborative effort by the Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development Goals
Division in the Public Governance Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation (OECD) and
the European Commission-Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC).
The report was coordinated by Apollonia Miola (EC-JRC), in collaboration with Carina Lindberg and
Ernesto Soria Morales (OECD). Strategic guidance was provided by Tatyana Teplova (OECD) and
Giampiero Genovese (EC-JRC). The report benefits from the contributions of several OECD Directorates,
EC-JRC and an international community of scientists and practitioners through a call for papers launched
in April 2020.
The authors are grateful to Daniela Wirth and Koen Jonkers (EC-JRC) for overseeing the editorial and
review process, and to Melissa Sander (OECD) and Meral Gedik (External consultant) for preparing the
report for publication.
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Table of contents
Foreword 3
Acknowledgements 4
Abbreviations and acronyms 10
Executive summary 13
1 Linking the domestic and international implementation of the SDGs: Governance
mechanisms and tools for addressing spillovers and transboundary impacts 15
Carina Lindberg and Ernesto Soria Morales
Introduction 16
Spillovers and transboundary impacts in an increasingly complex world 16
The role of policy coherence for sustainable development 17
Institutional mechanisms and tools for addressing spillovers and transboundary impacts
throughout the policy cycle 19
Lessons learned 23
Looking ahead 24
References 25
Notes 25
2 SDGs integrated impact assessment strategy: A governance tool for identifying
and managing the spillover effects and transboundary impacts in the 2030
Agenda 27
Apollonia Miola and Valeria Andreoni
Impact pathways 29
Impacts beyond national borders 32
Side effects of policies 34
Towards an SDGs integrated impacts assessment framework 36
Conclusion 40
References 41
Notes 44
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3 The path to policy coherence: How OECD members (could) use the SDGs at home
and abroad to better support developing countries 45
Alejandro Guerrero-Ruiz, Santhosh Persaud and Chantal Verger
The SDGs as a common platform to help address transboundary impacts 46
Opportunities to do more: using the SDGs to reflect policy effects on developing countries 48
Aligning development co-operation to the SDGs in developing countries: progress and
challenges 53
Development co-operation practices affecting the use of SDGs at country level 55
Potential to strengthen connections between development co-operation and other policies at
home 57
Conclusion: the way forward 59
References 60
Notes 68
4 Private sector resilience: The role of responsible business conduct in ‘building back
better’ globally 73
Tihana Bule
Understanding responsible business conduct 74
From risk to resilience: RBC and COVID-19 74
Measuring RBC in the global economy: opportunities and challenges 76
References 84
Notes 86
5 Measuring transboundary impacts in the 2030 Agenda: Conceptual approach and
operationalisation 89
Michal Shinwell and Junya Ino
Defining and measuring transboundary impacts in the context of the SDGs 90
Measurement of transboundary impacts 91
Measuring transboundary flows 98
References 103
Notes 107
6 Quantitative accounting for transboundary impacts: A new approach 109
Ali Alsamawi
Understanding the challenges in global supply chain estimates 110
Methodology 112
Identifying the transboundary impacts through a global model 112
Conclusion 116
References 117
Notes 117
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7 The omnipresence of transboundary effects: A global, systemic, model based
approach for analysing the SDGs 119
Robert M’barek, George Philippidis and Tevecia Ronzon
An approach to analyse transboundary impacts, SDGs and trade-offs globally 121
Case study investigating global transboundary effects of implementing the Paris Agreement 124
Conclusion: challenges and opportunities 132
References 133
8 Assessing transboundary issues through a systemic lens: Insights and proposals
from EEA sustainability assessment reporting 137
Lorenzo Benini, Cathy Maguire, Tobias Lung and Lale Karayaka
Assessment of the EU’s transboundary interactions: a systematic approach 139
Illustration of the methodology applied to synergies and trade-offs for transboundary impacts 144
Discussion and conclusions 148
References 151
9 Assessing the transboundary effects of EU consumption: Applying a life cycle
perspective to SDG 12 155
Esther Sanyé Mengua and Serenella Sala
The Consumption Footprint 156
Results and discussion 159
Conclusions and further research 162
References 163
10 Measuring countries’ impacts on the global commons: A new approach based on
production and consumption based accounting 167
Guillaume Lafortune, Zachary A. Wendling, Guido Schmidt-Traub, Finn Woelm, Carmina
Baez, Reed Miller, Dan Esty, Naoko Ishi and Akiyuki Kawazaki
Improving accountability frameworks for sustainable consumption and production 169
A new approach for measuring domestic and transboundary environmental impacts 174
Measuring consumption-based impacts embodied in trade 178
Method summary and preliminary results 181
Conclusions and next steps 186
References 187
Further Reading 190
Note 191
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11 Policy priority inference for sustainable development: A tool for identifying global
interlinkages and supporting evidence-based decision making 193
Annabelle Sulmont, Maite García de Alba Rivas and Stephanus Visser
The PPI model: foundations and data to address interlinkages within and between countries in a
systemic way 194
Adaptation of the PPI model to the SDGs and pilot implementation 197
Practical applications of the PPI model to support progress on the SDGs 201
Future research and application 205
References 205
Further reading 206
Notes 206
Annex 11.A. List of indicators used to pilot the PPI model 207
Conclusion 212
FIGURES
Figure 1.1. Eight guiding principles for enhancing PCSD 19
Figure 2.1. Impact pathways for national internal and external polices 30
Figure 2.2. Factors and links influencing the magnitude of the spillover and transboundary effects 35
Figure 2.3. Steps for Policy Evaluation and Design 37
Figure 2.4. Steps for policy evaluation and design including transboundary considerations 38
Figure 3.1. Growing use of the SDGs by both providers and partner countries 47
Figure 3.2. The use of integrated approaches in development co-operation is still limited 56
Figure 3.3. Degree of influence of the SDGs in development co-operation delivery at country level 57
Figure 3.4. Using the SDGs to visualise COVID-19 effects across sectors 58
Figure 5.1. TFSD diagram of sustainable development ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere’ 92
Figure 5.2. Ratios of transboundary flows to size, by region 101
Figure 6.1. An example of gross exports by origin of income and final destination (2015) 114
Figure 6.2. Estimated share of child labour embodied in imported food products for Europe (2015) 115
Figure 7.1. A graphical representation of the CGE model framework 121
Figure 7.2. MAGNET - Modularity for cross-cutting assessments; policy-coherence 122
Figure 7.3. Coverage of SDGs in MAGNET 124
Figure 7.4. Assumed global changes in emissions and fossil energy markets 125
Figure 7.5. Scenarios outcome in SDG indicator metrics for the world 126
Figure 7.6. Scenarios outcome in SDG indicator metrics for Sub-Saharan Africa 127
Figure 7.7. Food prices and drivers (1.5DG vs BAU), 2050, in % change 128
Figure 7.8. Volume of advanced biofuel production in 2050 for BAU, 2DG, 1.5DG, Mtoe 128
Figure 7.9. Real income per capita and drivers (1.5DG vs BAU), 2050 129
Figure 7.10. Change of EU trade balance in million euros 130
Figure 7.11. Change (%) in selected indicators, 2050 1.5DG+liberalisation vs 1.5DG, in SSAfrica, EU and
globally 131
Figure 7.12. Change (%) of Domestic Food Production (Agriculture) and Food Imports, 2050
1.5DG+liberalisation vs 1.5DG, selected countries 131
Figure 8.1. Average spillover score against Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in purchasing power
parity 139
Figure 8.2. Synergies and trade-offs between SDGs in the European Union 140
Figure 8.3. Visualisation of SDGs’ transboundary impacts across multiple scales (i.e. EU and rest of the world)
by means of synergies and trade-offs analysis 141
Figure 8.4. Assessing transboundary impacts through different analytical lenses can inform European policy
and action 142
Figure 8.5. Share of Europe's final demand footprint exerted outside ‘European’ borders 146
Figure 9.1. Diagram of the Consumption Footprint elements and the geographical coverage of domestic and
import footprints (including transboundary effects 157
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