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The G20 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): reflections on future roles and tasks

Kloke-Lesch, Adolf
External Publications (2015)

Third Annual G20 Think Tank Summit “Global Governance and Open Economy” July 30 – August 1, 2015 Beijing: Renmin Univ. (Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies)

With the adoption of universally applicable Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the UN Summit in September 2015, the world will be entering uncharted territory. All countries, rich and poor, will have to fundamentally realign their development pathways from 2015. The new agenda stands for nothing less than a Copernican turn in the thinking and acting about development and cooperation. The paradigm shift to sustainable development and to the ensuing concept of a Global Partnership for Sustainable Development has yet to fully filter through to policy-makers, business and society in all places. So far attention is quite high only on domestic implementation in and by low-income countries and to the respective international cooperation by high-income countries. The reason for this uneven pattern of attention should be an issue of concern since the development pathways of the high-income countries and also some bigger middle-income countries are critical for the success of the new agenda. Given their commitments and their track record the question for the G20 is not whether but how to contribute to the implementation of the SDGs. G20 Leaders should emphatically rally behind the new agenda and commit to implement the SDGs in their own countries, in their global policies, and in their cooperation with others. The G20 should set up a G20 SDG Framework and support the emerging SDG implementation architecture. At the operational level the G20 should focus its work on those areas to which action by them holds particular global relevance and /or comparative advantage.

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