In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the seventeen Global Goals, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These outline an ambitious worldwide agenda to reduce poverty and hunger, improve health, promote equality, combat climate change, and foster sustainable development. With the adoption of the SDGs, all 193 member states are called upon to develop strategies and take actions to achieve these goals by 2030 at both global and local levels. For this reason, the SDGs are also referred to as the 2030 Agenda or the Global Compact for the Future.

Around the world, governmental institutions, NGOs, civil society initiatives, and activists are working to raise public awareness of the 17 goals, set national targets and milestones, discuss the necessity, scope, and significance of the SDGs and national implementation strategies, and define the responsibilities of governments and citizens while calling for their implementation. This is a tremendous challenge that calls on every individual to participate and contribute their perspectives. The guiding principle of the SDGs is:

No one is left behind!

 

As ambitious as the 17 Goals are, they also represent the lowest common political denominator that the international community could agree upon. For this reason, they contain many contradictions and potential conflicts. For example, the SDGs almost consistently refer to more or less “developed” countries without addressing the colonial-historical and current causes and contexts of unequal distribution of resources, poverty, and wealth, or fundamentally critiquing the ideology of growth. In this way, the SDGs also reflect current power structures linguistically and do not question them.

Here, we would like to draw attention to the critical statement by the umbrella organization of development-policy non-governmental organizations (VENRO), which notes that in the SDGs, “…the structural causes of poverty and social inequality, which are reinforced by the global economic, financial, and trade system, (…) are not sufficiently named. And fundamental goal conflicts, such as that between continued economic growth and the finiteness of natural resources (…) remain.” In the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the significance of these contradictions has become even more pronounced.

We share this criticism, but we still consider it worthwhile and important to operate within this tension, to explore it, shape it, and repeatedly subject it to critical discussion. Those who wish to engage in discussions about the Global Goals will find ample suggestions on the following pages.

Information and Background

With the Global Goals Campaign, the United Nations itself brings the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to the general public. The multilingual platform www.globalgoals.org offers extensive information on the SDGs and provides elements such as logos, images, and videos that can be used free of charge for one’s own public relations work. The site is particularly aimed at informing young people about the goals and content of the SDGs and offers suggestions for individual engagement.

The Global Policy Forum Europe e.V. (GPF) operates a portal providing information on the 2030 Agenda and the implementation of the 17 Goals in and through Germany. A good summary of all 17 SDGs by GPF, including comments, background information, and their relevance for Germany, can be downloaded here. GPF is an international NGO founded in 1993 that acts as an “independent policy watchdog”, critically monitoring the work of the United Nations.

A German-language version of the entire 2030 Agenda is available here.

 

Implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Germany

In 2016, the German federal government adopted a sustainability strategy to implement the 2030 Agenda, which has been further developed in subsequent years under changing governments. A working group from VENRO critically monitors this process of implementing the 17 Goals and ensures civil society participation.

Most development-policy networks provide educational and background materials on the 2030 Agenda on their portals. For example, the One World Network Thuringia (Eine Welt Netzwerk Thüringen) has created a 2030 Agenda portal presenting the content, goals, and political significance of all 17 SDGs, and discussing possibilities for their implementation with a particular focus on Germany.

In 2020, the Global Policy Forum published an interim assessment of the SDGs: Where does the world stand after five years in implementing the 17 Global Goals? Their conclusion is at best mixed: while many countries, cities, and municipalities have translated the 2030 Agenda into national and local sustainability strategies, and the growing number of social movements addressing core themes of the 2030 Agenda is a positive development, in much of the world social inequality is increasing, environmental destruction and climate change are advancing. The GPF report provides analyses of the status of implementation in Germany and worldwide, as well as key figures, facts, and case studies for each SDG.

So far, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on achieving the 2030 Agenda are barely considered in this interim assessment. For example, VENRO reports on its blog that due to the pandemic, the number of people affected by chronic hunger in 2020 increased more than in the previous five years combined: “Extreme weather events as well as multiple social, economic, and political crises undo successes. Often, education, agriculture, health, social security, and sanitation systems are insufficiently developed, disadvantaging rural communities, indigenous peoples, women, and other marginalized groups. More than half of the world’s population is not socially protected in times of crisis.”

Education and Action

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development provides concise information on each SDG, as well as videos, events, discussion material, and suggestions for action on its German-language website 17 Ziele. These resources are particularly aimed at young people and can be implemented even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The European youth education project CulPeer for Change offers an extensive quiz covering all SDGs at different learning levels (beginners, intermediate, expert). Each SDG has 12 questions with three answer options, and participants immediately see whether their answer is correct. At the end, detailed explanations for the correct answers and further materials (links, videos, graphics, texts) are provided for each question.

The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection presents various lesson plans and materials for primary and secondary schools on the topic of SDGs in its platform “Environment in the Classroom” (as of Oct. 2021). Its “Topics of the Week” section covers individual SDGs in more detail.

On the Global Learning and Education for Sustainable Development portal from the World University Service, users can search for current teaching suggestions and educational materials for the 2030 Agenda overall as well as for individual SDGs. The portal also provides links to websites with background texts, position papers, studies, and further information.

The learning platform Sustainable Development Goals targets teachers with didactic materials, games, films, training courses, and references to other pedagogical resources. It is supported by eight development-policy organizations, which offer many additional resources for teachers beyond the website.

The publication The Goals for Sustainable Development in the Classroom from the ESD Expert Net serves as a guide for teachers (especially for grades 7–9) and aims to encourage the integration of the 17 Goals into lessons. Each SDG and its background are briefly described and illustrated through a “Story of Change.”

The United Nations offers the app SDG in Action, which allows students and teachers to access information about the SDGs in a mobile and user-friendly format. Each goal is introduced with short videos containing facts and figures, along with suggestions for action. The app also highlights ongoing initiatives and allows users to interact with actors or start their own projects.

 

Agenda 2030 in Hamburg

For Hamburg, the Hamburger Ratschlag zur Umsetzung der Agenda 2030, an association of civil society initiatives, compiled a catalogue of demands for Hamburg’s political authorities regarding the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals in May 2017. A short study by the Zukunftsrat Hamburg on Hamburg and the SDGs is available for free download.

On July 4, 2017, the Hamburg Senate adopted the roadmap for the coming years in the official document Implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in Hamburg, to be carried out under the leadership of the Authority for Environment and Energy (B.U.E.). To facilitate exchange with civil society actors, the B.U.E. established the so-called Sustainability Forum Hamburg (NFH) in 2018, which is intended to accompany and support the process of implementing the global Sustainable Development Goals in Hamburg.

In the meantime, a coalition of more than twenty organizations has formed within the NFH, including BUND, NABU, the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Crafts (ZEWU), ADFC, Michael Otto Foundation for the Environment, Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald / RENN Nord, and the Council for Sustainable Development Policy (RANEP), among others. More information about the work of the Sustainability Forum can be found here.

The brochure Hamburg Makes it Simple – 17 Ideas for a World of Tomorrow presents 17 projects in which individuals and initiatives are already putting the Global Goals into practice and using opportunities in their region to make society more sustainable.