Drifting past policy coherence? Rhetoric and realities of the Mexican Sembrando Vida program’s sustainability goals

Global and interconnected sustainability challenges require systems thinking and policy coherence to support bold and coordinated action. To chart a course for action, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a suite of targets across international and national levels. Here, we explore intentions and contributions over time of the Mexican multifaceted rural-development program Sembrando Vida (SV) to the SDGs, to assess its policy coherence for sustainable development, especially in relation to climate change. We reviewed online documents and newspaper articles, interviewed key SV staff and analyzed the Mexican President’s morning conference speeches. We show that multiplicity and adaptation of stated intentions suggest opportunistic forms of policy drift with limited policy coherence. The potential of the SV program remains promising, but it requires clearer objectives, coherent strategy, expert knowledge, community support and evaluation. These results demonstrate how political context can cause policy drift and negatively impact intended policy coherence for sustainable development.