Interview C.J. van Leeuwen - Time to implement SMART SDGs

“Research led by Dutch academic, Professor Kees van Leeuwen, has come up with a framework to help countries and cities implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He talks to us about the framework and how it connects water to other urban challenges.
Dutch academic, Professor Kees van Leeuwen, is leading a call for a change in approach to the UN Sustainable Development Goals that, if adopted, could help accelerate implementation. Even more so, it would see a better connection between water and other urban issues in plans forecasting the development of cities over time.
“Some of SDGs cannot be classified as SMART,” says Van Leeuwen, who is Chief Science Officer at NWP member KWR Water Research Institute and Professor of Water Management and Urban Development at Utrecht University. By SMART, he is referring to ‘specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound’. “They also lack clear indicators for how a country should report its progress. If you combine these points, the SDGs will not deliver what we all expect.”
This was the main conclusion of recent in-depth research assessing SDG 6 which covers clean water and sanitation for all carried out with Bryony Essex and Stef Koop, also of the University of Utrecht and KWR.”

(Citation: Interview C.J. van Leeuwen – Time to implement SMART SDGs – www.netherlandswaterpartnership.com (2020)19 March)