The 2030 agenda as agenda setting event for water governance?: evidence from the Cuautla river basin in Morelos and Mexico

Abstract

Policy science has developed various approaches, such as agenda-setting and goal-settingtheory, aimed at explaining the emergence of policy shifts and behavioural changes. The 2030 Agendasets an ambitious vision for human development in times of global environmental change andmakes for an interesting subject to study the explanatory power of these approaches. While theSustainable Development Goals (SDGs) enshrined in the 2030 Agenda resulted from a process ofintergovernmental negotiations, they will ultimately have to be implemented by national governments.Using the case of Mexico, we take the governance of water as a starting point to investigate whetherthe 2030 Agenda has indeed become a focusing event for sustainability transformation. Buildingon data from 33 expert interviews and findings of a Social Network Analysis of communicationsbetween water stakeholders from different sectors in the Cuautla River Basin, we conclude that majorparadigm shifts in water governance in Mexico are thus far rather attributable to domestic focusingevents and windows of opportunity than to the motivating impact of globally set goals. The Mexicancase also illustrates that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is strongly dependent on politicalwill at the highest level. Ensuring the continuity of its implementation across administrations will,therefore, require mainstreaming and anchoring the SDGs into the sectorial strategies that determineactivities at the lower working level of government.