The Interactions of Sustainable Development Goals: The Case of Urban Informal Settlements in Ethiopia Andrea Hoeltl 1* , Roman Brandtweiner 2 , Romana Bates 3 , Tania Berger 4 1 Department for Knowledge and Communication Management, Danube University Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrekstraße 30, 3500 Krems, Austria 2 Institute for Information Management and Control, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria 3 Department for Management and Economics, Danube University Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrekstraße 30, 3500 Krems, Austria 4 Department for Building and Environment, Danube University Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrekstraße 30, 3500 Krems, Austria Corresponding Author Email: andrea.hoeltl@donau-uni.ac.at https://doi.org/10.18280/ijsdp.150304 ABSTRACT Received: 17 March 2019 Accepted: 14 January 2020 Ethiopia is challenged by a strong development progress. Currently the major issues in Ethiopia, as a least developed country with a rapid urbanisation, include a high level of income inequality, lack of formal employment opportunities, deeply rooted poverty, tenure insecurity, poor infrastructure, and limited access to electricity and energy. The Erasmus+ Project “Social Inclusion and Energy Management for Informal Urban Settlements”, enables European and Ethiopian universities to develop new university courses integrating the aspects of sustainability for future professionals in the field of architecture, urban planning but also social sciences. The paper investigates the respective situation in Ethiopia, and demonstrates the interactions of six selected Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations highly linked with this topic. These six Sustainable Development Goals were identified in a participative process, involving different stakeholders like government officials, urban planners or informal settlers by interviews, focus groups, workshops and conferences. The focus is on SDG1 “No Poverty”, SDG3 “Good Health and Well-being”, SDG7 “Affordable and Clean Energy”, SDG11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities”, SDG13 “Climate Action” and SDG15 “Life on Land”. In the context of Ethiopian cities, energy production and distribution have been highly centralised under state entities and the scope for exploring local/business driven and decentralised energy systems has been limited. Transitions can be implemented towards sustainability and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, if collective identification and structuring of issues along with collective envisioning of the future, and the interactions and trade-offs of different goals are taken into consideration. Keywords: Ethiopia, informal settlements, Paris agreement, renewable energy, Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, Sustainable Development Goals 1. INTRODUCTION Social and environmental aspects for the sustainable development of informal settlements (slums) are the main focus in the context of the EU Erasmus plus Project “Social Inclusion and Energy Management for Informal Urban Settlements (SES)”, running for three years until 2020, with Ethiopia as the African partner [1]. A holistic approach in Ethiopian universities’ existing academic programs for future architects, urban developers and energy managers is applied, and responsible personnel at local authorities will be trained. The results will sharpen the profile of universities and their responsiveness to societal needs, improve the employability of graduates as well as the networking between local stakeholders and intensify contacts between Ethiopia and Europe. The key aspects of the project SES, the current situations of informal settlements and of energy supply and demand in Ethiopia, are the focus of this paper. In this context, six out of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are discussed regarding their mutual interaction demonstrating that on the way to a sustainable development a broad and holistic approach may support the goals best. 2. INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS IN ETHIOPIA Figure 1. Geographical position of Ethiopia, Africa [2] International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning Vol. 15, No. 3, May, 2020, pp. 287-294 Journal homepage: http://iieta.org/journals/ijsdp 287 brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Elektronische Publikationen der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien