Navigating Governance Asymmetry in Sustainable Infrastructure Transformation: Integration of ESG Architecture and Digitalization in Ministries of Public Works (KemenPU) and Local Governments

GREEN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT AND GREEN INVESTMENT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FRANCE AND SLOVAKIA

This paper analyzes Green Public Procurement (GPP) as a strategic instrument of sustainable development in the European Union, with a comparative focus on France and Slovakia. It examines how environmental criteria are integrated into public procurement systems and how these processes contribute to green investment and market transformation. Using a qualitative comparative case study methodology, the research highlights differences in regulatory frameworks, institutional capacities, and implementation practices. France represents an advanced model characterized by strong legal obligations and rapid policy diffusion, while Slovakia demonstrates a transitional approach driven by local initiatives but constrained by systemic barriers. The findings suggest that the effectiveness of GPP depends not only on legislative frameworks but also on administrative capacity, professional expertise, and coordination mechanisms. The study contributes to the understanding of GPP as a key policy tool linking public expenditure with environmental objectives and sustainable economic transformation.proposes legislative and policy reforms aimed at strengthening the integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles into the Slovak public procurement framework. The proposed amendments are aligned with the European Green Deal, Regulation (EU) 2024/3005 on ESG ratings, and the broader objectives of sustainable public procurement within the European Union. The study emphasizes the role of ESG certification, green evaluation criteria, life-cycle costing, digital product passports, and mandatory sustainability indicators in increasing transparency, reducing greenwashing, and improving the environmental performance of public expenditure. The analysis further demonstrates that municipalities and regional governments can become strategic actors of ecological transformation by transitioning from the procurement of the cheapest products toward the procurement of solutions with the lowest environmental impact.

Strengthening Digital Governance in Sri Lanka: Towards Horizontal Integration and Institutional Reform in the Public Sector

It is concluded that effective digital transformation in Sri Lanka necessitates a multi-pronged approach encompassing legal reform, strategic investment in ICT capacity, strengthened institutional cooperation, and the ethical deployment of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Model of risk governance in digital public sector projects: The case of Kazakhstan’s electronic human resource management platform

An ecological model of risk governance is developed that integrates ISO 31000, Behavioural public administration (BPA), and agency theory into a multi-layered framework for analysing digital public sector projects and offers practical recommendations for improving accountability, risk disclosure, user adoption, and institutional coordination in digital transformation projects.

Territorial Governance and Sustainable Development: Analysis of the Impact of the ISO 37101 Standard on the Action of Local Authorities

The Rationalization of Digital Governance: Interpreting the Shift from Fragmented to Unified Open Data Portals in Local Government.

The adoption of Open Government Data (OGD) by local governments is crucial for enhancing public sector transparency and accountability, principles central to United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). This study undertakes a rigorous analysis of OGD initiatives, using the two available United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) assessment results, 2022 and 2024, using a mixed-method approach to interpret the evolution of digital governance. The research first com-bines two distinct quantitative data sources: the external expert assessments from the Local Online Services Index (LOSI), which measures policy commitment, and a longitudinal analysis of official self-assessment data from the Local Government Questionnaire (LGQ), which quantifies infrastructural fragmentation. This is complemented by a deep-dive into ten global cases, selected for their di-verse governance structures and histories of fragmented data release. The key results reveal a synchronized trend toward maturity. The LOSI assessment indicated a modest, sustained rise in OGD policy commitment (from 31% to 33%) and active data sharing (from 35% to 37%). Simultaneously, the LGQ survey, track-ing a fixed panel of 20 cities, documented a measurable reduction in infrastructure-al fragmentation. The number of cities providing multiple OGD portal URLs fell from 40% (8 cities) in 2022 to 30% (6 cities) in 2024. This decline is interpreted not as infrastructural contraction, but as a strategic and mature move toward plat-form consolidation. This rationalization is essential for developing a coherent urban data ecosystem by enhancing data governance and resource efficiency, ultimately improving data discoverability for smart city applications.

From SDG alignment to SDG-ready public administration: institutional capacity, collaborative governance, and trust in Portuguese sustainability governance

The 2030 Agenda has transformed sustainability from a planning and reporting agenda into a demanding public-administration challenge. Governments are expected not only to align policies with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but also to coordinate across administrative silos, manage goal interactions and trade-offs, support local implementation, engage stakeholders, monitor progress, and sustain public trust in long-term transformation. This article asks under what conditions Portuguese sustainability governance can move from formal SDG alignment to transformative implementation. The article develops a theory-derived framework centred on five governance requirements: policy coherence, horizontal coordination, vertical coordination, collaborative participation and publicvalue protection, and monitoring-driven learning. Empirically, it adopts a theory-guided diagnostic case-study design combining a structured synthesis of secondary evidence on Portuguese SDG governance with comparative survey analysis using European Social Survey Round 11 (ESS-11) data. The survey component assesses institutional trust, democratic legitimacy, social trust, civic participation, and an author-constructed publicvalue/sustainability orientation index. The Portuguese case shows the development of relevant instruments for strategic planning, SDG reporting, coordination, and local mobilisation, but also reveals uneven implementation capacity across the five governance requirements. Weighted descriptive estimates from ESS-11 indicate that Portugal is close to the ESS-11 average in institutional trust and democratic legitimacy, lower in social trust and civic participation, and higher in the public-value/sustainability orientation index. These descriptive differences are not interpreted as statistically significant unless supported by inferential testing. The findings suggest that effective SDG implementation depends less on the proliferation of first-generation SDG planning and reporting instruments than on the institutional and social capacity to translate formal alignment into coordinated, accountable, participatory, learningoriented, and trusted administrative practice. The Portuguese case therefore illustrates a broader transition from SDG-aligned to SDG-ready public administration, in which transformative implementation depends on governance capacity as much as on formal commitment to the 2030 Agenda.