KISDI Publishes Report on “Review of UN SDGs 2030 Implementation and Post-2030 Strategies” (detail)

※ URL(Korean): https://www.kisdi.re.kr/bbs/view.do?bbsSn=114849&key=m2101113055776&pageIndex=1&sc=&sw=

Premium Report 26-2: Review of UN SDGs 2030 Implementation and Post-2030 Strategies

As of 2025, progress on the UN SDGs 2030 remains highly challenging

The report calls for the development of post-2030 strategies to address shared global challenges

The Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI, President Sangkyu Rhee) recently published Premium Report 26-2: Review of UN SDGs 2030 Implementation and Post-2030 Strategies. The report analyzes implementation trends of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 and presents six policy agendas for developing post-2030 strategies.

The report notes that armed conflicts driven by geopolitical, economic, ideological, and religious tensions have reached their highest levels since the Cold War. Intensifying multipolar competition, including U.S.–China rivalry and the rise of the Global South, has further strained international development cooperation based on humanitarian principles.

Against this backdrop, the report examines the origins, key contents, and current progress of SDGs 2030, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015. It also provides policy implications for sustaining SDGs implementation and preparing post-2030 strategies.

The UN introduced “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (SDGs 2030) in 2015, building on the achievements of the MDGs while addressing their limitations and criticisms. Unlike the MDGs, which primarily targeted developing countries, the SDGs apply to all countries and include 17 goals and 169 targets across five areas—people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. The framework is guided by principles of universality, inclusiveness, holism, measurability, and interconnectedness.

With five years remaining to the target year, progress across the 169 targets shows mixed results. Approximately 35 percent are on track or progressing well, while 31 percent show limited progress, 17 percent are stalled, and 18 percent have regressed.

International development cooperation experts attribute the limited progress to several factors, including trade-offs among SDG targets, the formation of distorted development narratives based on statistical indicators, the absence of effective global governance mechanisms to ensure outcomes, and the privatization of SDG financing alongside debt sustainability challenges.

Based on its review and expert perspectives, the report proposes six policy agendas for shaping post-2030 strategies. These include: conducting scientific empirical analyses of trade-offs among SDG goals and targets; differentiating goals, targets, and indicators according to global, regional, and national contexts rather than applying uniform standards; incorporating qualitative indicators reflecting beneficiary satisfaction alongside quantitative measures; securing binding financing mechanisms for global development initiatives while establishing minimum regulatory guidelines for private investment; developing bottom-up governance frameworks that reflect the voices of all countries in decision-making; and strengthening foresight research to anticipate risks and opportunities, alongside phased implementation procedures that allow periodic review and adjustment every five years over the 15-year period.

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KISDI Publishes Report on “Review of UN SDGs 2030 Implementation and Post-2030 Strategies”