As this year’s theme marks, “Accelerated action and transformative pathways: realizing the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development,” and coincides with the Voluntary National Review of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), we would like to base our statement on our recent report on the implementation by the government of DPRK of Sustainable Development Goal 5 - specifically regarding violence against women, with a focus on the Beijing Declaration for Action, but also Sustainable Development Goal 2.
Trafficking in women and girls
The Korean Future Initiative report reveals that a large portion of North Korean women who are sold into sex work or forced marriages in the Democratic Republic of China and other nations are often approached and recruited in their home country, while the DPRK categorically denies that trafficking takes place today. In addition, survivors of trafficking who are forcibly repatriated risk torture and certain detention.
Violence and mistreatment of repatriated North Korean women
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea published a comprehensive report, which drew from first-hand testimonies, it reported a disproportionate number of women who face repression, especially those who cross the border irregularly and are forcibly repatriated. At one detention center, repatriated women represented 80% of the population and all faced some level of torture.
Malnutrition and hunger among women and children
At the same time hunger is a real issue in the DPR Korea which causes many of the women and children to flee. UNICEF recently reported malnutrition among children and women a nationwide problem, “Young children and pregnant or lactating women suffer from chronic malnutrition.” They found over 30% of children aged 6-23 months do not receive the minimum acceptable diet.
While we welcome the engagement of the DPR Korea in joining the Voluntary National Review, it is essential that DPRK acknowledges and genuinely addresses the above mentioned and ongoing challenges, without it the process of review is meaningless.
We therefore urge the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in order to accelerate action and ensure the development of its countries and citizens, to:
Allow UN bodies into the country to monitor the situation and grant them unrestricted access.
Allow for freedom of expression and religion, and media freedoms. An open society allows for greater transparency which results in greater accountability, and in turn, accelerated action.
We urge the international community to:
Realize the role of fundamental freedoms in tackling and realizing the Sustainable Development Goals and to encourage Member States to include civil society in the solution.
COVID-19 has revealed the vast extent of inequity for those of us with disabilities in accessing digital content in general and in online education specifically. While access to broadband and inexpensive data plans affect everyone living in areas lacking this infrastructure, those with disabilities, often living at or below the poverty level, are also severely impacted by the lack of accessible learning material in online learning ecosystems. Although we, as a global community have known about this inequity and have held conferences on inclusive education, we were not prepared for a pandemic to provide the immediate revelation of just how much digital ecosystems and content is not accessible to students, parents and teachers with disabilities. There has been no leadership or mandate toward digital accessibility in the global community.
For the past 20 years, Karlen Communications has worked to consult, train and advocate for digital accessibility in education, employment, social, religious and civic participation. We continue to advocate for inclusive design of all digital content and environments, however, with the prospect of COVID-19, or another pandemic on the horizon forcing us to only have access to online learning, we need to accelerate goal 4.5 of the Sustainable Development Goals through the following recommendations:.
First, we, as a global community need to clearly define what we mean by inclusive education. While “accommodation for” those with disabilities will always be a part of any learning ecosystem, it should not be the only solution for those with disabilities in primary, secondary, or tertiary education. Within digital learning environments we have control over how inclusive the learning experience is. We need to codify this into a global inclusive education standard based on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Secondly, any funding for any education or learning project must include either/both an accessible digital content mandate and/or the immersive inclusion of students and teachers with disabilities. We, as a global community providing leadership in achieving goal 4.5 of the Sustainable Development Goals must ensure that any learning environment is optimally accessible for those with disabilities.
Thirdly, we must create the supports in terms of training and accessible resources to ensure that learning material is accessible to students, parents, and teachers with disabilities. Students who first put hands on a computer/digital device should create inherently accessible environments and content.
Fourthly, the United Nations as a whole, as the creator and guardian of the CRPD must provide a leadership role in digital accessibility. Any publication produced by any United Nations department, Non-Governmental Organization, Disabled Persons Organization or partner organization must begin hiring staff with experience in accessible document design, training existing staff on accessible document design and
working with remediation services to prioritize digital content that to date has not been accessible to those with disabilities.
Education is the building block for making significant progress toward the first 5 goals of the Sustainable Development Goals. We, as those who have chosen a global leadership role must make the right real.
Solutions in this submission are seen through the eyes of Kaurareg first nation peoples.
They are alternatives for accelerated actions and transformative pathways to deliver development in these testing times of SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic. Overwhelmed by viral-load pressures, Nation States are reinforcing economies and protecting borders;
international systems and institutions upholding globalization are collapsing as structural deficiencies are exposed; recycled liberal-democratic models offered as solutions to meet developmental needs continue to recycle failures; and international aid agencies continue displacing national and local aid agencies while global South populations most in need of developmental-aid continue to be overlooked.
It is time to consider radical solutions as real alternatives for survival in this emerging new world.
In Kaurareg’s view, if statecraft-practices of integration manoeuvre first nation peoples to engage accordingly, effectively distracting them from exercising their inalienable right to self-determine the legitimate form of self-government they aspire to, such statecraft-practices will inevitably fail. In Kaurareg’s case, if we cannot legitimately choose free association overseen by United Nations specialized agencies, then based on past statecraft-practice we can reasonably conclude Australia will continue recycling its integration programs to manoeuvre Kaurareg into no-through-pathways. Kaurareg is no longer confident that Australia has the capacity and the political will to legitimately decolonize its colonized and dependent peoples.
For millennia before the immoral Doctrine of Discovery was approved to claim distant lands, native peoples lived in tribal territories recognized and respected by neighbouring tribes. In those times, everyday practice of cultural diplomacy, rule-of- lore, customs and traditions, governed strategic sharing of tribal resources. In Kaurareg’s case, we were renowned traders, directing trade-traffic through our territory between Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and South-East Asia. Kaurareg’s trade routes, its exchanges and activities, thrived in marketplaces throughout these regions. Despite those everyday practices, today they are arrested developments.
Supporting Kaurareg’s belief for radical solutions, the benefits of Industry 3.0 and 4.0 technologies consistently bypass global South populations because self-determination infrastructure is absent. Instead, the global South experience sees developmental aid offered by the right-hand while tribal lands and seas with valuable resources are taken by the left hand, leaving recompense exchange rates measured by tribal-conflict and hazardous waste-land legacies. In this light, since 2015 Kaurareg has searched for developmental pathways mutually beneficial to all parties but has consistently encountered diversions and roadblocks. These obstructions are violations of our inalienable right to self-determine our future.
If sustainable development goals are to succeed, tribal peoples must direct the flow of skills-transfer to tribal nations; native trade routes activities and exchanges must be modernized; legitimate tribal self-government having sustainable elements of constitutional lore-and-law must be embedded within Nation State’s constitutional systems; and native peoples must be free to exercise tribal diplomacy with comparable equivalence to statecraft-practice. If the objectives of accelerated action and transformative pathways for development in this decade are to be realized, Nation State legislatures, administrations, and judiciaries, must uphold the inalienable rights of their colonized and dependent populations to self-determination, and native trade must be formalized into national and international marketplaces.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for a more inclusive world. By specifically asserting the need to include people with disabilities, the SDGs require the international community’s approach to development to be linked directly to disability rights. We cannot meet the Goals successfully without fully embracing and operationalizing the idea of ‘no one left behind’.
Nevertheless, some deeply marginalized groups continue to be left out of efforts to fully implement the SDGs. Keystone Human Services is an INGO that works in Moldova, India, and the United States. Our work is focused on the goal of dismantling institutions and building inclusive communities with and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and people who have lived experience of mental ill health. Through this work, we see time and again that there are groups of people being systematically ignored in the struggle for voice, space, and place in society. The Goals cannot be met without directly addressing this issue. Inclusion must become more than an ideal, it must be a course of action.
Despite the widespread ratification of the CRPD which calls for individual rights and the end of large congregate settings, institutions continue to exist throughout the world.
Residents are subjected to neglect, inhumane conditions, and abuse, with little respect for their dignity and rights. This is just one example of how devaluation is compounded by segregation.
Over the last several months, the pandemic has brought to light some of the true costs of this type of systemic discrimination. People living in institutions and nursing homes represent a disproportionate number of fatalities from COVID-19. Support staff have not been able or available to care for residents, hygiene protocol was not communicated in accessible ways, testing was lacking, and medical care was not available/accessible. In emergencies, people are also at risk of being institutionalized as rates of poverty increase, family members become ill, and schools close.
As we have seen in our work, establishing sustainable, inclusive community-based services, including community homes, mainstreaming disability in policy frameworks, and creating platforms for self-advocacy, can lead to the successful inclusion of people with disabilities. It is these types of transformations, from isolation and marginalization to inclusion and self-determination, that are at the very foundation of the SDGs. These are examples of ideals being actualized, the types of transformative pathways that will make meeting the SDGs possible. Only when everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential does our society have the chance to function at its best.
As long as systems exist to isolate and exclude, the people within those systems will be vulnerable not only on a day to day basis, but increasingly so in the face of emergencies and crisis situations. If not addressed, the current situation will continue to
repeat itself, not only in future pandemics, but also in natural disasters. This moment poses a major lesson to the world; social inclusion matters. Deliberately transforming our societies and systems to be inclusive of everyone is inseparable from actualizing the SDGs.
Putting skills and knowledge for development at the core of the implementation of UN SDGs & Agenda 2030 worldwide
Knowledge For Development Without Borders (KFDWB) is a young non-governmental organization based in Vienna, Austria. Our vision is to empower local citizens to know, understand, secure and enforce their roles, responsibilities, and engagements in the success of the SDGs in order to reach a better world – a world of economic and social justice.
Besides KFDWBs primary objective of promoting the implementation of the SDGs, KFDWB acts also as a platform that provides people with the relevant knowledge and (business) skills to alleviate global challenges at the local level. KFDWB motivates, empowers, and engages people to become part of the implementation of the SDGs process worldwide and to assume active roles in shaping their communities and societies, thus literally becoming development agents in their own local environments.
We are focusing on a proactive and inclusive approach to develop digital competences that could help to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs. We think that if the digitalization is used correctly and by making its resources available to all users, it can be transformed into a multiplier of the good and an enabling factor for the creation of global justice and a more sustainable world. This means including everyone in the process – from children to elderly people, independently of their cultural background.
We have seen that some solutions are already available in part, but many people are not informed and struggle to insert them into an overall picture and towards a goal to sustainably change their worlds. In this sense, we believe in the enormous power of connecting people and providing them with the right tools.
The 2030 Agenda is universal, applying to all countries and actors. That is why our Pro-jek2020 Team, which is based on our common values volunteerism und teamwork, focuses on “Nachhaltige Entwicklung – Agenda 2030 / SDGs mit Schwerpunkt Digitalisierung und Jobs Skills in Österreich” and is convinced of the necessity of making its objectives palpable for all strata of society and to involve all stakeholders.
Conclusion
KFDWB recommends the promotion and encouragement of a proactive and inclusive approach: skills and knowledge for development at the core of the implementation of UN SDGs & Agenda 2030 to accelerate the achievement of the Goals worldwide.
101. Korean Association for Supporting the SDGs for the UN (ASD)
Under the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire realm is facing a massive transformation.
The ‘Globalization’, which has developed in 30 years, has been regressing and sustainable economic system is also in recession. In particular, approximately 100 million jobs have encountered a crisis due to the unprecedented transition of the industrial circles.
If people could not conduct the basic economic activities, the speed of the implementation of SDGs will be confronted with great challenges. Therefore, after the COVID-19 situation, it is crucial to discover best practices to lead the industrial world and develop these models to be the concrete actions for accelerating the SDGs.
In addition, Association for Supporting the SDGs for the UN (ASD), which is in special consultative status with ECOSOC has produced masks for preventing infectious diseases with Ildong Pharmaceutical, a global pharmaceutical company in Korea. The masks which have been produced since 2019 are created to cope with the fine dust issue in the Northeast Asia, which has the critical air quality pollution in the world.
Moreover, 70,000 people die annually due to the air pollution around the world and more than 80 percent of these occur in Northeast Asia.
Furthermore, people faced difficulties in purchasing existing masks due to the high- priced masks. However, ASD strived to produce high-quality masks, explained the masks as campaign products for implementation the SDGs1 to people and also encouraged people to obtain the masks at an affordable price.
Illdong Pharmaceutical Group is developing sustainable medicine, medical supplies and quarantine products in the worth with $44.26 million to assist people’s life. The main medical supply which is named ‘Aronamin’ was also introduced in the exhibition during the 2019 HLPF at the UN Headquarters.
The masks that were manufactured by ASD and Ildong Pharmaceutical could rescue people’ life by providing to 400,000 people under the COVID-19 crisis. Additionally, job opportunities could be provided to many people in the area of mask production which requires manual processing.
Above all people will have greater awareness regarding ‘Well-being’ and ‘Eco-friendly’
actions after dealing with COVID-19. We are attempting continuously to accelerate the implementation of SDGs with sustainable enterprises such as the Ildong Pharmaceutical Group and the cooperation model which is created with ASD could also play the vital role in promoting industrial circles of the world to attain the SDGs.
The roles of the government, civil society and the National Assembly are significant for the attainment of SDGs. Yet, the participation rate of private enterprises could have
opportunity and economic development in each section. The activities related to the SDGs of the Ildong Pharmaceutical Group is an exemplary case that can be implemented through participation in the SDGs field by other companies.
102. Kosar Mashiz (Hazrat Zahra) Charity
Education is one of the most transformative and sustainable long-term solutions for establishing economic growth, increasing shared prosperity, accelerating peace and social cohesion, plus preventing social harm and building resilience. Accordingly Obtaining quality education is the foundation to creating sustainable development.
To accelerate progress across the 2030 Agenda, educating childrens’ needs to be placed at the core of sustainable development, driven by greater political commitment, scaled- up solutions, more resources, and societal mobilization.
Kosar Mashiz Charity suggests a few key points and pathways to accelerate the 2030 agenda:
Prioritizing inclusion and equity in education; highlighting the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children plus promoting a culture of inclusion in and throughout education systems, to reach all learners from the early years.
Ensuring that education policies highlights gender equality, removes all barriers to girls’ completion of 12 years of free, publicly funded, compulsory quality compulsory education, and encourage their participation in all fields
Expanding investment in early childhood care and education to counter disadvantages and set the foundations for successful learning in school.
Acknowledging talents of individuals (especially vulnerable children) plus providing opportunities to grow their skills and talents.
Scale up investment in teachers through better training, professional development and decent working conditions, improved social and health care support, as well as the development of teacher communities.
Kosar Mashiz Charity foresees that these major pathways would be efficient and effective in accelerating the process; we must push ourselves to strategically, intelligently and efficiently balance at global level and in universal justice the synchronization with all the people of the world and their activities and representations, so that relative peace and equity could flourish.