Summary of Accelerated Action and Sustainable Taiwan

To advocate sustainable development, the United Nations invited leaders of nations around the world to its Sustainable Development Summit on September 2015, and passed Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The core content of this document is Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include 17 goals and 169 targets. To examine the implementation of each country, 244 indicators were announced on March 2017.

In response to the promotion of SDGs and local needs, Taiwan formulated 18 goals and 143 targets in 2018. The following year, Taiwan further formulated 336 corresponding indicators and coordinated target tracking supervision evaluation based on local needs, making sure that when evaluating the progress of Taiwan Sustainable Development Goals, a set of more coordinated review standards could be used, and thus reflecting the true implementation status of SDGs.

While data plays an important role in evaluating the progress of indicators, credible information is one of the key elements of realizing SDGs, and whether data of different phases is correct or not will affect the implementation progress of sustainable development targets. Therefore, adhering to the supervision evaluation mechanism, Taiwan completed the first annual tracking supervision evaluation (2019) and supervision evaluation phase (2016 to 2019), examining Taiwan Sustainable Development Goals implementation results of each competent authority.

As for the result of the first target tracking supervision evaluation, of the 366 indicators of Taiwan SDGs, with the achievement rate of 76.49%, 257 of which have achieved goals for the current stage. Take Core Target 5: Gender Equality for example, according to Gender Inequality Index (GII), Taiwan ranked ninth globally in 2018, and ranked first in Asia. In accordance to the indicators of SDGs target 5.5, the ratio of females serving as police officers and enterprise representatives is also on the rise each year.

Target 6 is closely related to the human living environment, and as for its indicators 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4, the reservoirs in Taiwan have maintained their water quality in recent years. The water recycling rate and wastewater treatment rate have been rising each year, steadily moving toward the target of ensuring clean water resources. Furthermore, evaluation has also been conducted on public hygiene facilities to ensure the percentage of quality public hygiene facilities is on the rise.

Viewing from a global perspective, over half of the world’s populating resides in cities, and according to international organization reports, that ratio will grow to two-thirds in mid-century. The trend highlights the importance of Target 11: sustainable cities and communities. When it comes to indicator 11.1, 11.2 and 11.6, Taiwan has achieved reduction of PM2.5 each year and kept waste recycling rate above 58%. As for increasing traffic convenience, the ratio of urban barrier-free buses has increased 14.9% comparing to 2016. In housing, officials have been actively promoting policies related to social housing. As of the end of 2019, move-in ready units had reached 15,003.

COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on the global economy this year. It not only decimated economic outlooks, but also changed the lifestyles and work habits humans have grown used to. To maintain the impetus for sustainable development, Taiwan has introduced countermeasures in the heavily-impacted fields of health, education and livelihood of laborers, endeavoring to stay on course toward a lively sustainable society that  “leaves no one behind.”

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