Dr. Chukwuka Onyekwena was a panelist at the SDG Learning session “From silos to synergies: Governance and policy coherence tools for implementing the SDGs in an integrated manner”. The Panel discussion on “Translating policy coherence into action: exchange of good practices and lessons learnt” was part of the High level political forum on sustainable development which took place on July 12, 2019 at the UNHQ in New York.

The overall objective of the learning session was to build capacities for enhancing policy coherence in the implementation of the SDGs and enable participants to be able to: Define successful methodologies and factors for applying policy coherence to a real-life multi-stakeholder policy making context; Utilise analytical tools to examine institutional and governance mechanisms, and identify strengths and areas for improvement in light of good practices, and to simulate the impacts of individual SDG policies;‐ Integrate local data into analytical tools to improve effectiveness of coherent policies;‐ Analyse the impact of SDG policies and combinations of policies at national or regional level, under business-as-usual or alternative scenarios.

The sessions enabled participants learn from concrete experiences in promoting policy coherence in a multi-stakeholder environment for the implementation of the SDGs. It also provided a platfrom for experts to provide knowledge about available methodologies, emerging tools and data sets, which are helping governments and other key stakeholders to break policy silos.

Overall, participants were able to learn how to apply the various methodologies, tools and data presented to improve policies and policy-making processes as well as organisational structures, and to identify mechanisms which can help achieve the SDGs in a more integrated and coherent manner.