Sustainability is a key topic in IDOS research. In addition to a study on the protection of life under water, IDOS activities this month also focused on the Blue Justice Conference in Copenhagen and the Agenda 2030 Dialogue Forum for Sustainable Development.
With its renaming in June 2022, the German Institute of Development and Sustainability made clear that, in addition to questions on global development, issues of sustainability are also of central importance in IDOS research, policy advice and training. Aspects of global sustainability are integrated into the research agendas of the various programmes and contribute to the work on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, ocean governance, global drinking water supply and on many other topics. One example is the study presented by Dr Anita Breuer, IDOS, and Julia Kercher, UNDP, which looks at the interlinkage of SDG 14 and SDG 16 and examines how good governance and the protection of life under water are linked. At the Blue Justice Conference in Copenhagen on 24 March, Prof. Dr Anna-Katharina Hornidge, Director at IDOS, and Arvinn Gadgil, Director of the UNDP Oslo Governance Center, presented the results of the study to international representatives from politics and academia and emphasised the importance of transparent and accountable government institutions for the effective implementation of SDG 14. Another example of IDOS work on marine conservation is an edited volume published in March, in which the editors Anna-Katharina Hornidge, IDOS, Stefan Partelow, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, and Maria Hadjimichael, University of Cyprus, bring together various contributions on the topic of knowledge production systems for marine policy.
However, questions on sustainability are not only dealt with in the thematic field of marine policy, but are also taken up in work on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. For example, Dr Axel Berger, Deputy Director of IDOS and Executive Director of SDSN Germany, represented IDOS at the Agenda 2030 Dialogue Forum on Sustainable Development in Berlin on 16 March. At the meeting, organised by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), representatives from politics, academia and civil society reflected on international aspects of SDG implementation and necessary steps to advance the transformation to more sustainable development. How these measures can be financed sustainably in the future was discussed at a workshop organised by BMZ on 24 March. Building on the work of IDOS‘ research programme „Transformation of Economic and Social Systems“, Axel Berger pointed out during the workshop discussion that international framework conditions need to be reformed in such a way as to increase the fiscal space of partner countries for sustainable development.
