There is substantive evidence that the prevailing silo approach in public policy is threatening the materialization of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, approaches to research SDG interactions are in its infancy, and available ones fail to adequately incorporate the social and governance dimensions, which are instrumental in the implementation of sustainable development models. Likewise, managing real world SDG problems requires strong stakeholder engagement approach to find solutions matching countries capacities and their socioeconomic-physicalgovernance contexts. SDG-pathfinding aims to bridge some of these gaps, and develop novel tools and capacities support a sustainable development pathway for African countries that is adapted to the local contexts and priorities. We will pursue this goal by adopting a strong interand trans-disciplinary approach to: 1) Analyze multi-level governance structures and path dependencies; 2) Develop and test an innovative, online and participatory SDG scenario policy tool to support the development of inclusive and bottom up narratives and transformation pathways; and 3) Foster exchange and knowledge sharing to promote social learning and drive the change in mindsets required to match our ambitions for sustainability. We will implement our approach in two African SDG from hotspots from Senegal and South Africa. SDG pathfinding is an experiential and fully participatory process, and will engage participants through living labs in defining their desirable futures, anticipate potential trade-offs, and co-designing solutions within the chosen sustainability pathways. Main innovations: 1) the integration with a governance framework to unpack impediments and enablers for SDG implementation; 2) a flexible integration of the different participatory tools; 3) suitable to support the localization of the SDG agenda, and 5) can be implemented online approach in situations where face-to-face meetings are not possible.