United Nations SDGs: the Italian commitment to the Agenda 2030

di Young Think Tanker - 30 Settembre 2022

from Frankfurt, Germany

Overview

2015 has seen the adoption of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which represents a prosperity plan for the planet and people. The plan is built according to 17 goals and 169 targets to be reached at least by 2030. As a matter of facts they are focused on gender equality, sustainability, food security, human rights etc.
Indeed, five critical areas are involved: people, planet, prosperity, peace, partnership. So, the ultimate goal is to protect the environment from degradation through sustainable activities, promoting an economic development that could be sustainable, fostering peace among states. Special attention is given to the role of global partnerships, through which the purposes of the Agenda are realized: global stakeholder, different communities, states and private actors are directly and proactively involved.
In addition, the SDGs are parts of actions undertaken by the European Union in order to promote sustainability and carbon neutrality. For this reason, the European Commission has implemented this project with many initiatives and through several areas (Dello Strologo et al., 2021).

 

2030 Agenda: the goals 

The declaration of the 2030 UN Agenda sets up the principles, the vision and the commitments to be followed. Reaffirming the centrality of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international law principles, the Agenda aims at reducing gaps among countries, populations, environments in a sustainable way.

Therefore here are the above-mentioned 17 goals:

As instance, technology, trade, politics are actively involved in this process: international trade represents a great engine in order to reduce inequalities among countries and increase economic growth. Therefore, through this Agenda, the Technology Facilitation Mechanism was also launched in order to support the economic processes: the union of the United Nations Task Team on Science has implemented it, in accordance to the civil society and the member states. 

 

The global current situation

Importantly, in 2022, the General Assembly of the United Nations has provided a follow-up of the current situation on the achievement of the SDGs.

Considering also the current gaps at national and regional level in terms of available data, the report underlines a general change. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, global health systems were under pressure and overwhelmed, many essential health services were interrupted and deaths were nearly 15 million. Comparing the pre-pandemic data, 2022 has seen roughly 90 million people living in poverty condition, 100 million children missing out schooling and more women than men losing their jobs.
This recent framework highlights the effects of the current invasion in Ukraine: the number of refugees and people in forced displacement has dramatically increased, creating one of the bigger refugees’ crises in modern times. In addition to this serious and dramatic humanitarian crisis, the conflict has led to a steady increasing in terms of fuel, food and fertilizing, affecting the global trade and the financial markets.

In addition, the environmental situation need to be improved, urgently requiring a transition towards greener economies and more sustainable production processes.

This interconnected global crises that the world is currently facing, represents a liability to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda; for this reason, a common response is required as well as more multilateral cooperation among states and the other stakeholders.

Italy’s commitment to United Nations SDGs

As stated by several studies, Italy is committed to achieve the SDGs pursuing strategies and activities provided by United Nations as well as European Union. As a matter of facts, Italy has set up a committee within the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chamber of the Deputies: it aims at making the legislative processes and the norms more incisive, implementing previous legislative activities. 

Italy has also participated during 2017 to the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, approving three crucial initiatives: the first one was the approval of the Budget Reform Law that showed an economic planning connected to some well-being indicators as well as to the traditional ones (GDP, deficit public debt, unemployment rate). In the second, new favourable environmental instruments were adopted as well as the “polluter pays” principle. The third shows the important role of Reports on the State of Natural Capital: each year a detailed report with up to date data and methodologies, has to be sent to the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Economy and Finance. If we consider also the results of the Human Development Index, Italy’s data have remained quite stable, recording a slight increasing (Dello Strologo et al., 2021).

 

Focus on Goal 17: the Italian Airport System

Furthermore, it is interesting to analyse the last goal provided by the 2030 Agenda and concerning the creation of partnerships to increase sustainable activities. According to a study (2020), more strategic plans and sustainability performances are needed to fulfil the achievement of the goal. In particular the Italian airport system was analysed in comparison to other European airports in terms of sustainable performance: as the researches state, the main Italian airport infrastructures still have to implement their activity and are not able to complete at all the achievement towards the 17 goals. For this reason, suitable organisational architectures, as well as training programme and education need to be crucial In this sector (Di Vaio A., Varriale L., 2020).

In addition, it seems that the Italian PNRR (Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza) lacks in terms of connections and partnerships with other nations. For this reason, it appears necessary a new global reconsideration of the cooperation mechanism (Asvis, 2022).

 

The current Italian situation

As the ASVIS report underlines (2020), it could be possible to divide the different goals into four dimension: social, environmental, economic and political.

The social dimension (goals 1, 3, 4, 5, 10) highlights the difficulties in achieving a total “Zero Hunger” and poverty: instead, the current difficulties deriving from the pandemic first and from the war then, have led to a decrease of the improvements made until now. In addition, the healthcare system was in serious difficulties due to the covid-19 and the overwhelming situation: the PNRR provides roughly 18 million euro through the Next Generation EU financings with the aim of implementing both the technological system and the infrastructural one.
Concerning the reduction of inequalities, the Italian PNRR has promoted the legislation on disability as well as some particular actions; reforms for the care of elderly appear necessary too.

The environmental dimension of the report shows a lack in terms of targeted interventions related to food security, agri-food system and food quality. At the same time, there is neither a precise system that can protect water resources and ecosystems, nor a system that prevent shortages and pressing challenges. Therefore, a regulatory framework is necessary to promote the necessary investments and partnerships, especially in the climate sector, where there is a lack of priorities and mitigation strategies.

From an institutional point of view, the PNRR shows a great implementation in terms of public administration and public policies. As a result, the plan, in fact, aims at reducing the time of civil and commercial proceedings by 40% and criminal trials by 25%. This fact could represent a thrust forward in terms of competitiveness concerning digitization, simplification, efficiency and well-being.

 

Conclusions

To sum up, SDGs are crucial in the Italian political landscape and governance; however further steps need to be made in order to improve frameworks and actions. Although Italy has reached good levels regarding several goals, many efforts have to be made to promote well-being, sustainability in environment, finance and gender issues. On one hand, it appears necessary to create, implement and share strategies that can raise much awareness in citizens and communities. On the other hand, companies and industries could focus more on investments, research and development from digitization to agri-food sectors (Dello Strologo et al., 2021). 

 

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Autore dell’articolo*: Alessandra Spadafora, Dottoressa in Relazioni Internazionali presso l’Università LUMSA di Roma.

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