From transnational circulation to subnational institutionalization: translating the 2030 Agenda into the planning of the state of Pará

Abstract

How are the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as a transnationally diffused policy framework promoted by international organizations, networks, and multilateral forums, mediated, incorporated, and translated into subnational planning instruments in the state of Pará? This article investigates the circulation and incorporation of this global framework into state-level planning, taking into account the socioeconomic, institutional, and environmental specificities of the Amazon. The research adopts a qualitative approach and combines a literature review on policy diffusion, transfer, circulation, and translation with a comparative documentary analysis of the 2020–2023 and 2024–2027 Pluriannual Plans (PPAs), SDG alignment documents, Voluntary Local Reviews, and institutional documents related to monitoring and governance. The findings indicate that the 2030 Agenda does not reach the subnational level through a single channel, but through multiple transnational, federal, and bureaucratic mediations. Its incorporation ranges from formal correspondences to denser processes of localization and translation, observed in the adaptation of targets, indicators, target groups, and territorial scales. Continuity across planning cycles, the production of territorialized indicators, and the creation of specific monitoring and coordination structures indicate a deepening process of institutionalization. The article concludes that transnational circulation does not end with formal adoption, but depends on mediation, selection, translation, and institutionalization capacities at the subnational level.