Governments today are challenged more than ever in three operational areas: pursuing sustainable development, being accountable to the public for the expenditure of taxpayer dollars, and anticipating and adapting to critical and cumulative risk.

Efforts within government to improve performance in these three core abilities of governance have been advancing largely independently over the past two decades, despite an apparent commonality in the basic principles and tools that drive them. The complexity and urgency of 21st century issues is an unforgiving place for uncoordinated efforts of such scale and importance.

This paper provides timely guidance to help governments at all levels improve their ability to effectively and efficiently pursue sustainability, accountability and adaptability. The common principles that underlie these governAbilities are highlighted along with a set of pragmatic tools that can be used to achieve them.

SDplanNet is a sustainable development planning network created to help government professionals at the national and subnational levels share best practices and build capacity in the preparation and implementation of strategies for sustainable development, and inclusive and fair green economies, and act as a vehicle to assist in implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This paper is a synopsis of discussions held at the SDplanNet-LAC regional workshop series that took place in Panama City in February 2014. Participating representatives from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean included government planning offices and environment departments at the national level, as well as regional organizations and networks that have mandates for sustainable development and planning at the regional level.

This briefing note drew on a recent survey that examined national councils for sustainable developments’ (NCSD) expectations for and recommendations on sustainable development goals (SDGs), and reviewed the NCSDs’ work over the last 25 years.

The review focused particularly on countries and situations where NCSDs have functioned well in order to try to identify any common elements of good practice or success factors that might be of use to other countries that are establishing or reshaping these bodies in the context of delivering the SDGs of the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

This paper highlights common capacity-building needs identified across the three regional workshops undertaken in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Africa, and Asia and the Pacific (AP) that were deemed necessary for advancing the integration of sustainable development principles and green economy approaches into planning and implementation practices.

It thus provides key guidance for a capacity-development agenda to be implemented during 2014 and 2015, and beyond, as countries prepare to deliver the post-2015 development agenda and the global SDGs.

SDplanNet is a sustainable development planning network created to help government professionals at the national and subnational levels share best practices and build capacity in the preparation and implementation of strategies for sustainable development and inclusive and fair green economies and as a vehicle to assist in implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This paper is a synopsis of discussions held at the SDplanNet Asia Pacific regional workshop series that took place in Incheon Korea from April 7–9, 2014. The workshop was attended by participants from diverse government and non-government agencies active at the national level across Asia Pacific, as well as regional organizations and networks that have mandates for sustainable development and planning at the regional levels.

Based on a mandate agreed at the Rio+20 conference, the international community has been engaged in a process to define and agree on a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) as a cornerstone of the post-2015 development agenda.

The paper provides an overview of potential approaches to monitoring and reporting in the context of future SDGs.

The objective of this briefing note is to assess the current status of capacity-building efforts by international organizations on sustainable development planning and implementation.

In particular, it covers the types of courses that are being provided, the distribution of these courses, and notable trends and gaps.

As underlined widely in research on governance for sustainable development, the subnational level plays a key role in implementing sustainable development policies, including the goals and (possibly) targets they comprise.

This implementation applies to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and goal sets in national and subnational sustainable development strategies or other cross-cutting strategies, and potentially to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) that are currently being developed. This briefing note explores the role of the subnational level in SDGs, shows good practice and provides practical ideas based on real examples.

On March 27, 2014 the European Commission launched public consultations on the investment chapter of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a trade and investment agreement under negotiation between the European Union (EU) and the United States.

The first negotiation round took place in July 2013, and the European Commission is targeting mid-2015 as the date for the conclusion of the TTIP. In response to the increased public interest in the TTIP and criticism surrounding the secrecy of the negotiations as well as the content of the investment chapter, particularly the envisaged inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), the EU decided to conduct a 90-day public consultation process on 12 main questions related to investment protection standards and ISDS. Comments can be submitted via an online questionnaire until July 6, 2014. In this context, the European Commission also held a stakeholder meeting with business and non-business participants in May 2014.

The attached report by IISD replies to the European Commission’s questions and statements related to the TTIP public consultation. The report seeks to inform the general public as well as European institutions about the legal implications of the proposed investment chapter text.