Workshop “Future of Sustainable Development: Bridging SDG Interactions, Modeling, Tools and Policy”

Countries are not on track to meet the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets to be achieved by 2030. Underachieving SDGs will negatively affect billions of people and worsen environmental and socio-economic problems. The next few years are crucial in accelerating efforts for sustainable development and co-creating the science-based post-2030 Agenda. 

In 2024, the United Nations is organizing the Summit of the Future with a twofold aim –  to accelerate efforts and respond to emerging challenges and opportunities for sustainable development. The aim is also to “turbocharge” SDG implementation. Doing so successfully must consider existing SDG interactions and shifting from conventional efforts to achieve a few goals at the expense of others. In the SDG Summit 2023, member states committed to address SDG interactions better and enhance partnerships. In the meantime, the Global Sustainable Development Report 2023 recommends six synergistic interventions. 

Bridging SDG interactions, modeling, tools, and policy is essential for meeting the aims of the Summit of the Future. However, model-based scenario analysis of all SDGs is still limited. Only a few tools exist for supporting holistic policy-making for implementing SDGs. Our workshop aims to address these issues by strengthening the role of modeling and tools to support policymaking for leveraging synergies and tackling trade-offs in SDG implementation. 

The specific objectives of our workshop are threefold:

• Develop a consensus paper on the importance of SDG interactions and how modeling and tools can support policymaking to accelerate efforts for achieving SDGs and beyond.

• Bring SDG research communities together to develop evidence-based policy recommendations informed by SDG interactions, modeling, and tools.

• Forster the SDG research network bridging interactions, modeling, tools, and governance communities for accelerating SDGs and a science-based post-2030 Agenda.

On the 24th of April, we will organize a broader open hybrid session with a larger group of scientists and policy makers. We will discuss the preliminary findings during the previous days and the future of SDGs and SDG research together with scientist and policy makers from both national and international governmental bodies and from different levels. Over 30 national and international scientists and policy makers have already registered for this event. 

Please register for this event by filling in this registration form.

Webinar Program:

• Welcoming participants - Frans J. Sijtsma (Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development)

• Key outputs of the workshop - Prajal Pradhan (Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society  and Nina Weitz (Stockholm Environment Institute)

• Keynote: Accelerating SDGs in the Netherlands (Sandra Pellegrom, National Sustainable Development Goals Coordinator, Netherlands)

• Panel on roadmaps for the Summit of the Future and the post-2030 Agenda

• Panel moderator: Frank Biermann (Utrecht University, Netherlands)

• Panelist: 

• Lily Talapessy (Strategic Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands)

• Sandra Pellegrom (National Sustainable Development Goals Coordinator, Netherlands)

• Ram Kumar Phuyal (National Planning Commission, Nepal)

• Astra Bonini (United Nations)

• Tim Benton (Chatham House, UK)

• Min Chen (Nanjing Normal University, China)