Wait! I know that isn’t a sexy title. But the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals for 2030, adopted in 2015, that are supposed to guide policy decisions. They provide a framework that shapes development decisions at the government level and creates space for non-state actors to push for their goals. This is true in the Koreas, also.

The UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific recently held its third multi-stakeholder forum on the SDGs in the sub-region of Northeast Asia. The meeting, in Vladivostok, certainly highlighted a curious region to be coordinating development goals: the six member states comprise a landlocked state of 3 million people, the biggest country in the world by landmass, the biggest by population, the most developed country in Asia, and the two Koreas. There are a range of social and political systems at work in these states. Historical conflicts abound.

The stakeholding states all made presentations on progress at the workshop, including the two Koreas.

Please click here to read the full “Engaging the Koreas on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals” article at The Peninsula, written by Griffith Asia Institute Adjunct Research Fellow Dr Andray Abrahamian.