SDG 9 - Widerstandsfähige Infrastruktur und nachhaltige Industrialisierung

By Roberto Bissio, Social Watch

The 2030 Agenda is enthusiastic about the “great potential” for accelerating human progress brought by information and communications technology and global interconnectedness. At the same time, however the UN now acknowledges “the dark side of innovation” and the new challenges of cybersecurity threats, the risks to jobs and privacy unleashed by artificial intelligence and the use of military related ‘cyber operations’ and cyber-attacks.

As with climate change, increasing inequalities or power concentration, those challenges cannot [...]

Civil Society activists critique first week of deliberations at High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

New York City, 14 July 2017: With the first week of deliberations at the 2017 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development coming to a close this Friday at the UN in New York, civil society activists are criticizing a piecemeal approach to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Especially worrisome to activists is a growing gap between aspirational goals and a lack of proper and comprehensive means of implementation.

On many occasions – during side-events as well [...]

Global Spotlight Report warns against risks of Public-Private Partnerships

New York, 13 July 2017: Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), usually portrayed as a useful tool towards sustainable development, actually “involve disproportionate risks and costs for people and the public purse”, claims a global coalition of civil society organizations and trade unions in the Spotlight Report 2017 launched earlier this week.

Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2017

New York, 10 July 2017: A global coalition of civil society organizations and trade unions presents today the report Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2017. It is published on the opening day of the High Level Political Forum at the United Nations in New York. The report provides the most comprehensive independent assessment of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By David Boys, Public Service International

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure are not much different from PPPs in general, in that they suffer from the same problems: contracts are complicated, legalistic and rigid; costs of borrowing for the private sector are almost always higher than for the government; in a quasi-monopoly situation, there are many opportunities to ‘game the system’ to increase profits; getting the private sector to assume risks always costs extra; private investors hardly ever commit their money [...]

What kind of industry policy do we need?

By Manuel F. Montes, South Centre

The 2030 Agenda includes as Sustainable Development Goal 9 (SDG 9) the commitment to “build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”. The entry of this goal into the 2030 Agenda is an achievement for developing countries which vary considerably in terms of population sizes, per capital incomes, economic sizes and structures, political systems, cultures but share the common feature of an underdeveloped industrial sector.Therefore, in order to implement SDG 9 [...]

By Bhumika Muchhala, Third World Network

The incorporation into the SDGs of inclusive and sustainable industrialization, as well as infrastructure, is a significant achievement for countries of the global South. SDG 9 includes targets to develop regional and transborder infrastructure, raise industry’s share of employment and GDP, doubling its share in least developed countries, greater adoption of clean technology and industrial processes and upgrading technological capabilities, innovation and research and development.

Such structural transformation processes were central to economic development [...]