Abstract:
It is almost 6 years since the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted, and countries have less than 10 years
to achieve the set targets. Unlike most of the world, sub-Saharan African countries have reported only minimal progress, one that
the COVID-19 pandemic has unfortunately disrupted. Transdisciplinary research (TDR) has been conceptualized as important
for achieving sustainability goals such as the SDGs. In this paper we (i) analyze the contributions of the five TDR projects toward
the achievements of the SDGs at the city level in Africa, and (ii) explore the interactions between the assessed SDGs across
the five projects. The projects’ contributions towards the achievements of the SDGs were examined in three thematic areas:
(i) contexts, (ii) processes and (iii) products. The five projects were funded under the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda
2030 in Africa (LIRA) programme. The projects were being implemented in nine cities across five African countries Accra
(Ghana), Kumasi (Ghana), Korhogo (Ivory Coast), Abuja Metro (Nigeria), Mbour (Senegal), Cape Town (South Africa), Nelson
Mandela Bay Metro (South Africa), Grahamstown (South Africa) and Kampala (Uganda) and data were collected on each of
the five projects in these cities. The contextual contributions include co-analysis and reflection on policy and institutional silos
and social innovations amenable to contextual complexity. A shift in how actors perceived and conceptualized sustainability
challenges and the role of the projects as transformative social agents constituted the two main process contributions. Tool
development, virtual models and maps, and handbook are the product contributions by the projects. Our analysis of the SDG
interactions indicated the need for cross-sectoral collaborations to ensures resource use efficiency, knowledge and experience
sharing, and seamless flow of information and data to accelerate the SDG implementation.
