Expectations for the SDG Summit
The 2030 Agenda adopted in 2015 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was a historic step in multilateral cooperation. With the SDGs, the global community should enable a decent and environmentally sustainable life for all. At the halfway point of the 2030 Agenda, however, a bitter balance must be drawn: It is increasingly unlikely that the SDGs will be achieved. In Germany and worldwide, implementation is proceeding far too slowly. Even though many measures are being discussed and implemented at the moment, particularly in the area of climate policy, there has been no coherent consideration of all sustainability dimensions in legislative projects to date. For a real socio-ecological transformation, therefore, much still needs to happen politically. Above all, political decisions made in Germany and the EU continue to have massive negative socioeconomic and ecological impacts on other societies and regions. In a ranking by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), Germany lands in 149th place out of 163 in the spill-over score, which measures the impact of policy decisions on other countries from positive to negative!
Germany has a responsibility to create just framework conditions at the international level and to work against inequalities and poverty worldwide. Particularly in view of the multiple crises worldwide, including wars, rising poverty and inequality, and the still-existing consequences of the Corona pandemic, we need the SDGs for the fairer world that states promised us when they adopted the 2030 Agenda. In order to build momentum at the SDG Summit to be held in September 2023, governments urgently need to show new commitment to the SDGs. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Eine Welt-Landesnetzwerke in Deutschland (agl), the international civil society network Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) and the Forum on Environment and Development have published expectations for the German government with regard to the summit. The demands can be read here.