Regional collaboration for the sustainable development goals: Experiences from developing a multi-actor platform in Sweden

The 2030 Agenda and its integrative and indivisible sustainable development goals (SDGs) challenge traditional ways of governing. Hence, collaboration across sectors, actors, and levels is fundamental in SDG localisation, where subnational levels (actors at regional and local levels) play key roles in forwarding societal transformation. The paper sheds light on the complexity of collaboration by exploring the early stages of developing multi-actor collaboration for SDG implementation at a county level in Sweden. The analyses depart from interviews and observations. One of the main conclusions is that it is important to discuss the involved organisations' understanding and ambitions more in-depth early on in such collaboration processes. To be able to do so, the actors need to have the capacity to see beyond their traditional roles. Moreover, the study indicates that leadership is essential in this context, but this leadership needs to be based on neutrality, which, in practise, is a challenge.