The "Korean Civil Society Contribution Report for 2020 HLF" was written to respond to the High-level Political Forum (HLPF), July 7-16, 2020 in New York, USA. This report includes the review of the progress of SDGs implementation in Korea for the past 4 years in line with 6 themes of 2020 HLPF: Human wellbeing and ending poverty, Ending hunger and food security, Relaunching growth and sharing economic benefits and addressing developing countries’ financing challenges, Access to sustainable energy, Protecting the planet and building resilience, and Bolstering local action. In addition, it recommends policies based on the reviews and introduces field actions by civil society groups for SDGs implementation.
The report was co-written by 29 member organizations of Korea SDGs Network and the Korea Federation of Trade Union(KFTU) and the Good Neighbors. This is the 4 th edition that Korea SDGs Network has published since 2017. Like the previous years, the process was going on for more than 3 months: having a preparatory meeting at the end of February, writing a draft per thematic areas in March and April, circulating draft for comments by online in May, and finalizing the draft in June. For this year, 10 member organizations and 2 non-member organizations joined a drafting team.
This report covers 41 targets of 14 goals in the 5 thematic areas of 2020 HLPF except for access to sustainable energy.
41 targets are reviewed comprehensively under 15 issues and policy recommendations are suggested. Furthermore, it includes how Korean civil society sees a political, economic, social, and environmental situation in the COVID 19 pandemic. Particularly, it delivers its social concerns through the voice of the persons with disability who faces social exclusion and their survival.
In the above mentioned, the voice of civil society in the area of energy was not included in the report. Moreover, it cannot be said that all aspects of SDGs are reviewed in general. Nevertheless, it is worthy to collect voices and actions of civil society groups in part for the follow-up of SDGs within its capability. In addition, the understanding of civil society on what SDGs mean as a social movement has been developed by the co-work of reports every year. NGOs who join the network and report work are in increasing gradually and more integrated and inclusive voice would be organized for sustainable development afterward.
