The Austrian strategy for sustainable development: process review and policy analysis

In compliance with UN requests, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSSDs) are emerging around the world. With these strategies, countries are supposed to halt or reverse trends that conflict with sustainable development. We begin by giving a brief overview of the history of environmental policy planning leading up to NSSDs. Afterwards, we summarize the content of the 2002 Austrian SSD and describe its making as well as implementation processes. On that basis, we proceed to analyze its respective strengths, weaknesses and the lessons learned in the process. As one of the authors took part in the making of the Austrian strategy, our process description and the subsequent analysis are able to draw upon insider knowledge. The three main conclusions of this analysis are the following: (i) the design of the implementation process is more policy relevant than NSSDs themselves; (ii) as NSSD processes, driven by bureaucracies rather than governments, will face limits in implementation, high‐level political commitment is crucial and (iii) experiences and lessons learned should not only be transferred from international organizations to individual countries but also directly between the countries themselves.