Unravelling deep roots in drylands: A systems thinking participatory approach to the SDGs

Achieving sustainability on the ground poses a challenge in decoding globallydefined goals, such as sustainable development goals, and aligning them withlocal perspectives and realities. This decoding necessitates theunderstanding of the multifaceted dimensions of the sustainabilitychallenges in a given context, including their underlying causes. In casestudies from Brazilian drylands, we illustrate how an enhanced multiscaleparticipatory method, combined with systems thinking tools, can shed lighton systemic structures that currently entrench unsustainable developmenttrajectories. This method offers insights into co-designing potentialpathways toward sustainable futures and unlocking transformative capacitiesof the local population.