s we move further into 2026, policymakers and development practitioners are converging around multi–track partnerships, export diversification, and blended finance to address widening governance gaps and stalled progress on the 2030 Agenda. This theme featured prominently at February’s 13th Asia–Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development in Bangkok, which followed UN ESCAP’s launch of its latest Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report amid aid retrenchment, sovereign debt pressures, tariff uncertainty, and geopolitical realignment.
Despite pockets of progress, the report finds that 88% of measurable SDG targets in the region remain off track. This sobering data point loomed over the APFSD proceedings, where participants also discussed evidence gaps as a central barrier to systemic transformation and called for a hard look at the tools practitioners carry forward.
Better empirical data can certainly improve monitoring and decision making. But evidence that clarifies and aligns stakeholder incentives—particularly around capital mobilization—will ultimately determine whether multi–track partnerships viably accelerate SDG progress. The hard question: Who funds and generates incentive–driven evidence, and how?
All stakeholders have distinct roles to play. For example:
- Bilateral and multilateral donors, in their role as development diplomats, can use technical assistance to fund small, multidisciplinary teams generating evidence that helps navigate past sticking points when convening durable partnerships.
- Philanthropies, DFIs, and impact investors can embed incentive analysis in pipeline development, facilitating co–creation that empowers communities to determine where local incentives align with those of private capital, regardless of deal size.
- Private sector actors can integrate incentive analysis into board strategy and due diligence, validating whether political, regulatory, and reputational conditions make SDG alignment a commercially advantageous pursuit, as they've been told.
- Civil society actors pivoting to social entrepreneurship can redirect energy from grant writing toward capacity strengthening in impact finance and political economy, helping them structure community–centered blended finance deals where constituent and investor incentives align.
- AI platforms, if used ethically with strong data protections, can rapidly and cost–effectively synthesize data to map where stakeholder incentives align, reclaiming time for human trust building and community engagement.
Applied political economy (a.k.a. context) analysis is a field–tested tool to pull this evidence together—one that should be strengthened, not sidelined. Practitioners in the Thinking & Working Politically space are distilling lessons from its past application, repositioning it to deliver value through aid austerity, and updating its analytical frameworks. Following this year’s APFSD, the Asia–Pacific remains a vibrant forum to build on that energy.
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Multi–track partnerships require incentive–driven evidence
Photo by Joshua Kettle on Unsplash
April 14, 2026
Multi–track partnerships have emerged as a key tool in addressing widening governance gaps and stalled progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To make them work, though, we need incentive–driven evidence, not just better data, writes Craig Grunwald.
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s we move further into 2026, policymakers and development practitioners are converging around multi–track partnerships, export diversification, and blended finance to address widening governance gaps and stalled progress on the 2030 Agenda. This theme featured prominently at February’s 13th Asia–Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development in Bangkok, which followed UN ESCAP’s launch of its latest Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report amid aid retrenchment, sovereign debt pressures, tariff uncertainty, and geopolitical realignment.
Despite pockets of progress, the report finds that 88% of measurable SDG targets in the region remain off track. This sobering data point loomed over the APFSD proceedings, where participants also discussed evidence gaps as a central barrier to systemic transformation and called for a hard look at the tools practitioners carry forward.
Better empirical data can certainly improve monitoring and decision making. But evidence that clarifies and aligns stakeholder incentives—particularly around capital mobilization—will ultimately determine whether multi–track partnerships viably accelerate SDG progress. The hard question: Who funds and generates incentive–driven evidence, and how?
All stakeholders have distinct roles to play. For example:
- Bilateral and multilateral donors, in their role as development diplomats, can use technical assistance to fund small, multidisciplinary teams generating evidence that helps navigate past sticking points when convening durable partnerships.
- Philanthropies, DFIs, and impact investors can embed incentive analysis in pipeline development, facilitating co–creation that empowers communities to determine where local incentives align with those of private capital, regardless of deal size.
- Private sector actors can integrate incentive analysis into board strategy and due diligence, validating whether political, regulatory, and reputational conditions make SDG alignment a commercially advantageous pursuit, as they've been told.
- Civil society actors pivoting to social entrepreneurship can redirect energy from grant writing toward capacity strengthening in impact finance and political economy, helping them structure community–centered blended finance deals where constituent and investor incentives align.
- AI platforms, if used ethically with strong data protections, can rapidly and cost–effectively synthesize data to map where stakeholder incentives align, reclaiming time for human trust building and community engagement.
Applied political economy (a.k.a. context) analysis is a field–tested tool to pull this evidence together—one that should be strengthened, not sidelined. Practitioners in the Thinking & Working Politically space are distilling lessons from its past application, repositioning it to deliver value through aid austerity, and updating its analytical frameworks. Following this year’s APFSD, the Asia–Pacific remains a vibrant forum to build on that energy.
