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Report that suggests the national future strategies based on the analysis of major future issues by the research team
[Futures Brief] Discussion on Progressing National SDGs Implementation: Transition from Segmentation to Integration (No.2)

Date : 2021-08-26 Writer : Cho Hae-in

Associate Research Fellow Cho Hae-in has alleged based on comparison of SDGs (sustainable development goals) implementation between advanced countries and South Korea. She has also asserted, in order for Korea to achieve inclusive growth and implement its global agenda, our society shall (1) identify a number of specific target for each goal, and (2) develop policies and institutions to ensure comprehensive control of economic, social and environmental values.

According to this report, “development” in South Korea was equal to “economic growth” accompanying with income increase from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Even today, attention is still focused on economic growth-oriented development, which is exacerbating inequality, polarization, competition, and environmental problems. It is time to find the direction of “development” that we should pursue in order to improve the quality of life of the present and also future generations.

She has conducted comparative study on trends and strategies for SGDs implementation and benchmarking cases referring to Voluntary National Review (VNR) reports of the G8 countries and South Korea. Consequently, Cho found that Korea was focused on “economy”, “society” and “environment” and a very weak link connecting those three sectors, while the advanced countries showed SDGs implementation across the various specific and detailed targets well-balanced and interconnected, rather than focusing on a few specific subjects. For example, “environment” has a high value in Korea, while “energy”, “climate”, “water resource” and “biodiversity” were found as high-value keywords in other countries, with which lower-ranked words such as “environment” and “economy” were associated; they were also related to “protection” and scaled up to “society”.

“See, for example, SDG9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure); Korea has high-level infrastructure and excellent R&D performance in a science and technology sector, but lack of inclusiveness is such a big challenge,” explains Cho. “If the domestic science and technology development infrastructure is connected with specific targets and other SDGs, such as gender equality and reduce inequality, we can get closer to realizing the global agenda of inclusive innovation.”