Dissemination of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Regions

of the Russian Federation: Readiness Inspection

Galina Menshikova

, Alexandr Soshnev

and Svetlana Evstratchik

Petersburg State University, Faculty of Sociology, 7/9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, Russia

Keywords: SDGs, Sustainable Development, Regional Rankings of the Russian Federation, System of Indicators Used

to Monitor the Development of Regions (Cities), Information Confidentiality.

Abstract: The development of SDG ideas is significant not only as the implementation of the intention to achieve

balanced development but also as a test of the readiness of state and regional systems to be adequate to modern

management requirements, including the openness of information. Purpose of the article: to assess the

readiness of the Russian regions for the transition to new management criteria, for which three tasks have

been set. The first is to show the general process of transition from sustainable development in Russia,

including its regions, to the SDGs. The second is to present a monitoring system for evaluating regional

processes related to sustainable development. The third is to compare the current system of indicators with

the one recommended by the UN

. The theoretical basis is the research that is at the intersection of the theories

of information openness and social responsibility of the government as a reflection of patron-agency relations.

The authors chose the Results-oriented public administration approach (Eisenstadt and Runiger, 1980),

(Lindberg Steffan, 2013), (Ugur and Erdogan, 2007), (APJ, 2010), (Yigitcanlar et al., 2019), seen as a

manifestation of Good Governance. Three conclusions can be drawn from the study. First, the regions of the

Russian Federation (as a whole) are not yet ready for the implementation of the SDGs. Second, a system of

experts has developed and monitors trends related to the SDGs: quality of life, level of environmental safety,

etc. Third - the system of indicators used to assess the sustainability of regions (cities), reflects the lack of a

developed information base and indirectly fixes the lack of political will of the leaders to orient management

towards economic, social, and environmental results. So far, in Russia, loyalty to the higher management is

valued higher than the development of the economy and the growth of the quality of people's life.

1 INTRODUCTION

The movement towards sustainable development as a

global world trend emerged at the end of the ХХ

century. This meant replacing economic orientations

with a wide range of parameters, including social,

environmental, and political ones. The development

of the course was carried out through the

concretization of the forms of embodiment, and

therefore new opportunities for the UN for

monitoring their implementation by states. Currently,

the movement towards sustainability is focused on

achieving 17 goals (SDG's), designated as milestones

in the UN policy document "Transforming our world:

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1381-3310

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2382-8201

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1377-5676

the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"

(2015).

In parallel with the specification of the

parameters, the development of the trend is carried

out through the spread of its ideas to ever lower levels

of management: in particular, to regions (cities) and

enterprises. For these purposes, similar to the UN

control over the development of countries, the

monitoring of enterprises and regions, carried out by

Governments is being organized. In this context, i.e.

combining national development with the

transformation of goals in the regions and at

enterprises, the UN recommends organizing activities

to achieve the SDG's. The purpose of our analysis is

to assess the readiness of the regions of the Russian

186

Menshikova, G., Soshnev, A. and Evstratchik, S.

Dissemination of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Regions of the Russian Federation: Readiness Inspection.

DOI: 10.5220/0010588001860192

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 186-192

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

Federation to rebuild the guidelines of their

management for new tasks

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The development of SDG ideas is significant not only

from the standpoint of the implementation of the

intention to achieve balanced development, but also

as a test of the readiness of systems (both state and

regional) to be adequate to modern management

requirements, including the openness of information.

Now, when, in general, statistical problems are

mostly resolved and data collection on most of the

UN-recommended indicators is being established, it

is important that the regions develop the statistical

base by providing relevant information on their

websites, as well as publishing it in regional statistical

compilations.

The openness of information is recognized as the

most important criteria for Good Governance, while

its provision is considered the most important duty of

the state, one of the principles of implementation of

the Public Administration. As a reminder, this term is

usually used to denote the modern stage of

government. This allowed democracy to reach such a

level that the state, within the framework of the

system of patron-client relations, is obliged to report

to the population, which, in turn, through the

institution of free elections and on the basis of open

information and annual reports of leaders, selects

those candidates for managerial positions who will

manage better than others.

The theory of patron-client relations as the basis

of the accountability mechanism, including in the

framework of the openness of state information, is the

methodological basis of the publication. As you

know, Sh. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger are considered

its originators. (Eisenstadt and Runiger, 1980) This

approach was deepened by C. Lindberg (Lindberg,

2013), Stiglits J. (Stiglits, 2002), and many other

authors who substantiated the mechanism for the

implementation of "vertical democracy". At present,

the issues on the topics of both accountability and

transparency of the public administration system are

of great interest to researchers, as noted by the authors

of reviews, for example (Kaya and Yayla, 2007; Mol,

2010; Yigitcanlar, 2019) and others.

The second theoretical trend, actively used by the

authors of the publication, is the work describing the

role of SDGs (Stiglits, 2014; Allen, 2019), revealing

the need for its expansion to the regional level

(Olakitan Atanda, 2019) and many others, as well as

assessing the availability of information on

achievements of a region in this direction (Gardner,

2019).

Let's name two more directions that cannot be

ignored. The first is the abundant literature describing

the emergence and development of Smart cites

(Visvizi, 2019; Joss, 2019; Yigitcanlar, 2019) and

others, as well as research on methodological

problems of improving city/regional reporting

(Huovila, 2019; Greco, 2019; Joss, 2019) and many

others. Both directions are of great importance,

although they were used in our publication only as

guidelines for the future. The first is due to the fact

that Smart cities exist in the country, but are little

included in the state regional policy. They were

formed on the initiative of citizens and, as a rule, were

not reflected in the rankings. The second is due to the

fact that Russian researchers do not yet have special

opportunities for choosing a system of reporting

indicators. For them, the main selection criterion is

not the appropriateness of the indicator as the best

criterion for evaluating, but the real possibility of

obtaining comparable data.

3 DISSEMINATION OF SDG

IDEAS TO THE REGIONAL

LEVEL

The UN and OECD rightly see the dissemination of

the ideas of the SDGs to the regions as the most

important task for the development of the global

trend. Indeed, the ideas of sustainable development

can then and only then be recognized as actually

achieved, when they are accepted by each person,

becoming a guideline in the management of all

enterprises and cities.

With that in mind, the OECD launched the

Territorial Approach to the SDGs project

Territorial Approach, 2020), which was intended to

initiate the implementation of ideas in cities of OECD

countries. It is the result of 18 months of political

dialogue with 1000+ interested parties. Its

conclusions and recommendations were based on

specific ideas from pilot cities and regions of ten

countries (Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Japan,

Iceland, Russian Federation, Brazil, Denmark,

Norway), where several interviews and seminars

were conducted during 2018-2019. Moscow was

named such a city from the Russian Federation, and

its mayor Sobyanin S.S. signed an agreement on the

transformation of the development goals of the

capital, as well as on the readiness to submit annual

voluntary reports to the OECD.

Dissemination of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Regions of the Russian Federation: Readiness Inspection

187

For 600 cities and regions of the world that

voluntarily joined the SDGs movement, performance

indicators and three basic directions were developed:

city participation in the national movement (1), a

reflection of SDGs targets in the city/regional plans

(2), use of SDGs as a means of increasing the

responsibility of all interested parties, i.e. both the

authorities and civil society (3).

For Russia, the regional aspect of the

implementation of the SDGs is especially important,

since the country's regions differ significantly in the

specifics of their economic and cultural development,

and, accordingly, they should have different priorities

for sustainability. Having recognized the importance

of 17 goals, the Russian government, however, does

not seek to extend the new attitudes to the middle and

lower management levels. The regions of our country

are, at best, at an intermediate (transitional) stage -

moving towards sustainable development in general,

but many do not implement this either.

We point out, however, that the task of

transitioning regions to sustainable development has

been set. It is fixed in the Concept of The Russian

Federation's Transition to Sustainable Development

(The concept of the transition…, 2018), which is

constantly being edited, although it does not reflect

any special measures to initiate reforms in the

regions. Experts admit that only two cities of the

Russian Federation are fully prepared to implement

the SDGs course: Moscow and St. Petersburg,

although the first and so far the only regional report

on the SDGs, made in the Rostov region, has been

published (Rostov Region).

It should be remembered that the appointment of

Governors by the President dominates in Russia, and

not the elections. Therefore, trying to control the

region, in one form or another they put their proteges,

and not those who will be guided by the needs of the

population. This circumstance is reinforced by the

preservation of centralized budgeting. By transferring

most taxes to the top, lower-level executives do not

have sufficient funds at their disposal. This prevents

them from introducing innovative projects, and also

makes them dependent on higher management.

The dissemination of ideas for sustainable

development is a reflection of the real penetration of

the ideas of the SDGs into the consciousness of the

population. So far, this direction cannot be considered

a part of Russia's national strategy. The country's

government does not track sustainability intentions as

part of its regional policy. To some extent, this is

explained by the fact that the coronavirus epidemic

has temporarily changed priorities.

So, only two cities can join the SDGs

Implementation Program, about 50 cities in one way

or another take into account the ideas of sustainability

when making management decisions, but the majority

are struggling to survive without having financial

resources, and also, not recognizing these goals as

encouraged by the Government and President of the

country.

4 QUALITY OF REPORTING

INFORMATION AS AN

INDICATOR OF THE

REGION'S READINESS FOR A

NEW COURSE

If the government of the country does not yet

recognize the importance of transforming the

activities of the city (region) in accordance with the

new tasks, the experts are actively involved in

assessing the changes. They have developed and are

implementing several ratings that make it possible to

publicly assess the successes/shortcomings of regions

in areas related to sustainable development, see Table

Table 1: Ranking system of regional development in the direction of sustainability.

Initial data and year of creation Evaluation purpose and indicators

Quality of Life Rating. RIA Rating, 2013,

http://riarating.ru/regions/

A comprehensive accounting of indicators that record the

actual state of living conditions of people (72 indicators,

which are combined into 11 groups).

Rating of innovative development of the federal subjects

of the Russian Federation. NRU HSE since 2012,

https://issek.hse.ru/rir/

Indicators characterizing the social and economic conditions

of innovation, scientific and technical potential, the level of

innovation activity, the quality of regional innovation policy.

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Rating of the state of the investment climate in the

Russian Federation. ASI since 2014

http://asi.ru/investclimate/rating/

Assesses the efforts of regional authorities to create a

favorable business environment and identifies best practices.

Rating of fundamental (ecological and energy) efficiency.

Interfax-ERA since 2007 (ANO "NERA" until 2010)

http://interfax-era.ru/

Evaluates the work of 5,000 enterprises. Regions are assessed

according to 5 criteria - energy and resource, technological

and ecosystem efficiency, dynamics of efficiency since 2005,

and transparency of business environmental reporting.

Ecological and economic index of regions. WWF Russia

(World Wildlife Fund), 1989, http://new.wwf.ru/

The goal is to calculate a comprehensive indicator of the

ecological and economic index, which adequately reflects the

ecological situation in the regions and the ecological and

economic sustainability of their development; calculated

based on an analysis of environmental, economic and social

indicators.

It has been compiled by the public organization Green

Patrol since 2008, published 4 times a year

http://www.greenpatrol.ru/ru

The goal is to carry out public monitoring and carry out a

comparative assessment of the regions in the field of

environmental safety and environmental protection.

Sustainable Urban Development Ranking. Agency SGM

(Sustainable goals Management agency) since 2012,

www.agencysgm.com

The goal is to identify leaders and outsiders of sustainable

development of the environment and cities to determine the

potential for growth and improve competitiveness.

Index of Digital Life in Russian Regions. MSM

SKOLKOVO, only 2014 and 2015

https://iems.skolkovo.ru/

The goal is to quantitatively measure the progress of

digitalization in 15 million-strong cities, outlining areas of

possible interaction for business and administrations.

Public infrastructure development index in Russian cities.

The Institute for Regional Studies and Urban Planning of

the Higher School of Economics has been formed since

2017 https://irsup.hse.ru/

The goal is to monitor the current state and formed conditions

for the development of infrastructure, assess the quality of the

city policy in order to prepare recommendations for local

government bodies to improve urban planning.

* The table is compiled on the basis of data from the Institute for Regional Studies, https://irsup.hse.ru/ratingsinfo

Summarizing the information provided, we can

conclude that in Russia, as in many other countries of

the world, a comprehensive and systematic

assessment of the development of regions towards

sustainable development and the SDGs is being

established. Various kinds of expert organizations,

including prestigious scientific (Skolkovo) and

university centers (NRU HSE), mass media (RIA

rating, Interfax-ERA), independent agencies SGM,

public organizations Green Patrol and foundations

(WWW), each in their direction and by their own

methods organize and publish the relevant

monitoring.

Let's describe the results of the ranking of

sustainable development of cities, as our profile topic.

First of all, let us point out the general conclusions of

the experts from AGM, with which we cannot but

agree. The first is their recognition of the importance

of city monitoring both as indicators of development

and as evidence of the authorities' real interest in the

implementation of the SDGs. Second, there are only

two cities in the Russian Federation: Moscow and St.

Petersburg that can really join the global trend. The

third is the closeness (absence) of regional

information. Our analysis of the websites of regional

authorities and the judgments of the experts of AGM

coincide - there is very little information, over the

years of compiling the rankings it does not grow.

Against this background, there is a positive trend in

the growth of openness of information from

enterprises: the market has become an effective driver

of innovation. Fourth, experts point to the forced use

of indirect methods of assessment: a survey of

residents, content analysis of the press, which,

however, cannot replace the data of official regional

statistics, and also enhances the factor of subjective

assessments.

5 REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

INDICATORS AND THEIR

COMPLIANCE WITH THE

DEVELOPED OECD

PROGRAM

The experts from AGM, as indicated, did not reveal

on the websites of cities (regions) significant and

obligatory for all indicators characterizing economic

and social development. They were forced to simplify

the assessment system as much as possible, see Table

Dissemination of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Regions of the Russian Federation: Readiness Inspection

189

Table 2: A system of indicators selected by experts to assess the development of regions towards the SDGs.

Comparison

options

Indicator name

Population

(demographics)

Natural growth rate, %; migration growth rate, %; demographic load, %; mortality from socially

significant diseases per 100,000 people.

Social

infrastructure:

– Healthcare

– Education

– Security

The number of doctors per 10,000 population; the number of nursing staff per 10,000 population;

the number of hospital beds per 10,000 population; the capacity of outpatient clinics per 10,000

population.

The number of those in need of attending preschool institutions in relation to the number of places

in them, %; the number of students in secondary educational institutions per 10,000 population; the

number of university students per 10,000 population; the number of winners of the All-Russian

Olympiad for schoolchildren per 10,000 of the population under working age, %; the number of

computers in schools per 1,000 students; the number of city schools in the TOP-500 rating of the

best schools in Russia; the number of city universities in international academic rankings.

The number of registered crimes per 1,000 population, the number of murders per 1,000 population

Urban

infrastructure:

–

housing and

utilities

infrastructure:

– transport

Housing commissioning, m²/person; the share of families waiting in line to improve their living

conditions, %; renovation of the housing stock, %; share of dilapidated housing, %; equipping of

housing with systems of heat, water supply, sewerage, %; average annual output of a heat supply

source, thousand Gcal

The number of trips by 1 person on public transport per year, thousand times; the number of victims

of road traffic accidents per 10,000 populations.

–

communication Internet users per 1,000 people; the number of connected mobile devices per 1,000 population.

Analysis of the indicators used in the urban

sustainability rating confirms the lack of information.

The presented list is not only quantitatively small, but

it does not meet the requirement of assessing not only

sustainable development but development in general.

On its basis, it is impossible to identify economically

and environmentally leading regions. The authors of

the rating, where they could have inserted facts of the

region's participation in national events, but,

apparently, even these events are not presented on the

website in full.

It is clear that the indicators characterizing

changes in management, on which the OECD

Program is based, is not reflected in the system: there

is no indication of the submission of data by the

region to the Voluntary Report of the Russian

Federation, no data on changes in the planned

indicators of regional development towards

sustainability, there is no possibility of identifying

national initiatives to solve urgent social or

environmental problems in the region, in particular,

the creation of Smart Cities.

Based on the available opportunities, the experts

identified the main clusters of cities: leaders (1),

difficult to assess (2), outsiders (3). This division has

not changed since 2012, which is typical.

Thus, the first cluster includes twenty cities - the

leaders of the ranking. They can be roughly divided

into five groups: capitals (Moscow, St. Petersburg),

the largest cities of the Urals and the Volga region

(Yekaterinburg, Perm, Kazan); dynamically

developing regional centers (Tyumen, Krasnodar,

Stavropol); centers of the oil and gas industry (Surgut,

Nizhnevartovsk, Novy Urengoy); a number of cities

in the Moscow region (Krasnogorsk, Mytishchi,

Domodedovo, Khimki).

The second cluster is made up of cities that

occupy fundamentally different places in different

positions. Experts draw attention to the imbalance in

the regional organization, expressed in the

fundamental difference in the positions of regional

centers and cities on the periphery. The strongest

imbalance is typical for the cities of the Sverdlovsk

region, Orenburg region, and Udmurtia. Their

administrative centers (Yekaterinburg, Orenburg,

Izhevsk) are in the TOP-50 cities of the ranking, and

smaller cities in these regions (Nizhny Tagil,

Pervouralsk, Serov, Orsk, Sarapul) are located at the

bottom of the ranking.

Twenty cities that took the lowest positions in the

ranking included mono-cities of the Urals and

Western Siberia (Prokopyevsk, Kiselevsk, Leninsk-

Kuznetskiy, Pervouralsk, Nizhniy Tagil, etc.), as well

as Crimea and the North Caucasus (Khasavyurt,

Feodosiya, Yalta).

The experts from AGM came to the following

general conclusions, with which one cannot but agree.

Their constant analysis of changes in the position of

cities in the ranking of sustainable development

shows that the positions of the majority of cities

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(87%) change insignificantly, i.e. that only the

authorities of 13% of cities reflected on the

sustainability course (SDGs). At the same time, their

analysis of the dynamics of the ranking results over

several years showed that the more balanced a city is

in terms of economic, social and environmental

development, the more steadily it develops during an

economic downturn and has a higher development

potential during a period of economic growth in

Russia.

6 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The Russian Federation as a whole has fulfilled its

obligations to the UN, having presented the

Voluntary National Review of the Achievement of

the Sustainable Development Goals of the Russian

Federation in July 2020, for which it received

corresponding public recognition. At the same time,

our analysis of the websites did not reveal any

significant changes in the management of regions in

order to reorient them to new goals. The country is

implementing the Concept of the transition of the

Russian Federation to sustainable development

(1998), which is regularly edited. The lack of

legislative consolidation of the SDGs by the

government of the country predetermines the fact that

the regions do not seek to restructure their activities,

which experts note.

The absence of not only regional reports on

sustainable development, but also the absence of

information (formatted according to a unified

methodology) on their own websites indicates both a

low level of information transparency and an

underdeveloped accountability system in the country.

There are no reports and places occupied by the

region in the ratings; therefore, the population does

not have objective information for choosing leaders.

Experts of the Russian Federation, representing

the scientific community in different types of

organizations, are ready to organize monitoring of the

region, but a serious obstacle to their work is the lack

of information on the indicators of their development.

It seems that the statistics committee should develop

a system of mandatory reporting, and think over both

a unified methodology for their measurement and the

development of the system in order to gradually move

from a general assessment of the sustainability of the

region's development to a more detailed system of

parameters that allow assessing the implementation

of the SDGs, including improving the management

system taking into account the recommendations of

the OECD.

7 CONCLUSION

At the moment, Russia has really confirmed its

readiness to follow the path of the SDGs by

submitting a Voluntary National Report to the UN.

We'd most like the next report to reflect not only the

country's successes but also problems, including

shortcomings in regional politics.

Assessing positively the work of the experts, we

would like, on the one hand, to invite them to compile

a ranking of Smart cities, as well as to take into

account the number of such cities in the general

regional reporting. At the same time, we would like

to advise to expand the ranking of the evaluated

criteria as potentially possible, based on the

Recommendations of the OECD and scientists. The

data may not yet be available, but regional specialists

will see their future landmarks.

The transition to free elections of mayors and

governors will not only increase the degree of

democratization of governance in the country, but

also make the policy focused on the population and

not on senior management

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