The UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development covers the three dimensions of Sustainable Development: the economic, the environmental, and the social. Equitable and lasting development requires careful balance in production, consumption and use of natural resources to ensure that today’s consumption does not compromise the needs of future generations. The achievement of the goals of these two international agendas will require that African nations design appropriate policy measures with respect to their adaptation, implementation and reporting.

Making public policy, while taking into account the interactions of the different dimensions of sustainable development, can be a challenging task. In this regard, better modelling practices can enable public officials to judge the outcomes of policies in a more comprehensive way.

The Economic Commission for Africa is supporting African countries in the creation of system dynamics models that will enable more informed policymaking. In the Central African region, having already provided policy models to Cameroon, the ECA will be holding a workshop in Republic of Congo to further refine a draft model of the country.

Over two days, the ECA team, comprising staff from both the Addis Ababa and Yaoundé offices, will discuss system dynamics with government staff in Brazzaville, and present a model of the Republic of Congo that can be used by policymakers. This workshop will build on a previous event of February 2018 that introduced government officials in Congo to the Integrated Planning and Reporting Toolkit – software for integrating national development plans with the Sustainable Development Goals. Officials of the Republic of Congo will leave the workshop with better knowledge of system dynamics modelling, and the ability to use a custom-built model to inform their public policy process.