Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Challenges for Korea

Abstract

The United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the 2030 Agenda by the General Assembly on its seventieth session held in September 2015. The implementation of 17 goals and 169 targets requires whole-of-government approaches because the tar-gets of indicators are integrated and inter-connected. In particular, Goal 17 seeks to strengthen global partnerships to achieve the Agenda’s goals, bringing together national governments, the international community, civil society, the private sector and other actors. Members of the OECD, including Germany, Finland and Norway, have already developed their own national strategies based on the UN SDGs. As for the Korean government, it was necessary to modify the 3rd General Plans for Sustainable Development (2016-2035) because the Plans previously set in 2016 had a different structure from the UN SDGs and did not specify targets. Accordingly, the Korean Sustainable Development Goals (hereinafter referred to as K-SDGs) have been set to complement such aspects of the UN SDGs and be supplemented after a social consensus process. In this regard, the K-SDGs have been established through a bottom-up approach rather than the existing top-down government approach.