GENERAL ASSEMBLY
REBUILDING TRUST AND SOLIDARITY FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
INDIAN SCHOOL ALAIN
RACHEL S
ABSTRACT:
“Individually, we are drops, together, we are an ocean.”
In the tumultuous world we live in, Global Solidarity is
an ineluctable necessity for progress. On the path
towards global solidarity, lie the incentives of peace,
prosperity, progress and sustainability for all. Hence,
sustainability is key to unlocking the door for mutual
cooperation and trust. This truly brings out the
essentiality of the SDGs, goals the Republic of Turkey
has been working towards achieving ever since their
adoption. Prioritizing the SDGs within our national
development plans is essential for reducing poverty,
eliminating inequalities, promoting gender equality, and
ensuring universal access to critical services such as
healthcare, energy, and clean water. The Republic of
Turkey has vowed to increase efforts on the SDGs and
provide assistance to any country while doing so, for
only through global solidarity can we bring about
sustainability, and only through sustainability will global
harmony be achieved.
INTRODUCTION:
In a world marked by unprecedented challenges and
complex global issues, the 2030 Agenda and its
sustainable development goals transcend borders and
nations to move towards peace, prosperity, progress, and
sustainability for all. However, the world has faced
numerous new crises and the SDGs are in jeopardy as
progress stalls amid the climate crisis, economic
fluctuations, conflicts and pandemic aftermath.
Regrettably, in the 7 years that have now gone by, action
on the SDGs has been crawling at an apathetic pace than
what is needed, and now, in 2023, with less than 7 years
left to go for the completion of the 2030 agenda, it is
imperative that all members of the UN take requisite
efforts to accomplish all 17 goals by 2030. The Republic
of Turkey has vowed to increase progress upon the SDGs
and their accomplishment by 2030.
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RELEVANCE OF THE ISSUE:
The SDGs are making progress in Turkey thanks to the
collective efforts of the government, private and public
sectors, NGOs, and the public. Yet, challenges persist.
The benefits of economic growth have not been evenly
distributed. The average earnings of employees are lower
than other OECD countries, and employment was 13% in
2020. Addressing unequal opportunities for minorities,
youth and women will require further efforts. Turkey still
has much to do to ensure gender equality and
opportunities for women and girls. The Targets of
Human Capital are yet to be achieved, with differences in
socioeconomic background, gender, immigration status
and location contributing to large disparities in education
outcomes. As a rapidly growing economy, Turkey faces a
range of environmental pressures, such as scarcity and
low quality of water and increasing air pollution. This
may be due to several factors including overuse, limited
integrated management of water resources , discharge of
untreated wastewater and insufficient wastewater
treatment facilities and diffuse pollution.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
In September 2015, the 17 Sustainable Development
Goals were unanimously adopted during the 70th session
of the United Nations, guiding global efforts towards
human well-being, economic prosperity, and
sustainability. These goals have had a substantial impact
on Turkey's national development and sustainability
policies.
PAST INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS:
Turkey signed the United Nations Framework
convention in 1992, remained loyal to the principles of
the Kyoto Protocol and The Paris Agreement, ratified
the Convention on Biological Diversity, was a part of
the United Nations Convention to combat
Desertification, and is a party to the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora.

TURKEY’S POSITION AND STEPS TAKEN:
As a middle-income country, Turkey has made progress
in all three dimensions of sustainable development and
taken fundamental steps in eradicating poverty, reducing
inequalities and addressing the vulnerable. With the
efforts of all those involved, Turkey has achieved 16 of
the 123 SDG goals. Over the past few years, Turkey
has strengthened its institutional framework to
address environmental challenges, and, based on a
human-centered development approach and having a
younger population, Turkey has achieved remarkable
progress in providing better quality, broader and
more accessible public services, particularly for
education and healthcare. Policies to reduce inter-
regional infrastructural disparities and promote
technological facilities across the country marked an
inclusive development pathway. It was observed that
significant progress has been achieved, in terms of many
goals with a performance above the world average
especially in such areas as reduction of poverty,
elimination of inequalities, gender equality, and access to
all basic services including particularly healthcare,
energy and clean water. Social policies also had a
positive impact on this outcome.
In addition to the NDPs and strategic plans of relevant
public institutions, key policy documents on the SDGs
include:
 The National Employment Strategy, National
Youth Employment Strategy, Productivity
Strategy and Action Plan for increasing the
number of people employed, and raising the ones
living below the poverty line.
The number of people living in poverty dropped from
11.4% to 10.6% in 2021-2022
 Strategy and Action Plan for Combating
Agricultural Drought in Turkey Climate Change
Strategy and Action Plan to reduce hunger
levels and develop agriculture.
 The Biosafety Law for incorporating a set of
principles and procedures for addressing the risks
associated with genetically modified organisms,
 Designed to reduce maternal and infant mortality
rates, Mother-Friendly Hospital Programme
and Guest Mother Project were launched to
monitor pregnant and puerperant women, and
ensure that all births take place at hospitals, and
under safe conditions.
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As of January 2019, 54 hospitals were named as
“Mother-Friendly Hospital.”
 Community Mental Health Centres were
opened for the first time in 2014 to ensure that
psychological counselling services were
available to patients with psychological disorders
as part of primary healthcare services.
 To ensure quality education, schooling rates
were increased, human and physical
infrastructure improved and the number of
students per classroom reduced, the
curriculum updated, special attention was
given for in-service training of teachers, and
funds increased for all levels of education.
In the context of preventing abuse and violence against
women, Turkey was the first country to sign and ratify
the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and
Combating Violence against Women and Domestic
Violence (Istanbul Convention)
 In 2018, 95,185 female farmers received socio-
economic development training programme
and 2,881 female farmers received cooperative
system training in the scope of 12,273 activities.
 Turkey has been placed on the list of water
scarce countries with an estimated 1,400 m3 /p/y
(cubic meter per person per year) of water
resources. 14 policies were undertaken, which
commit towards improving the water scarcity
conditions in Turkey. In the context of efficient
management of water resources, master plans for
25 basins were completed; and work is underway
for river basin management plans.
While the population using safely managed drinking
water services was 95% in 2002, this rate reached
99.77% in 2023. In the same period, the rate of
municipality population using safely managed
wastewater and sanitation systems increased from 83%
to 90%.
 Work is underway to build planned settlements
which are resilient to disasters, safe, have
accessible integrated transport networks and to
efficient waste management system.
 Turkey is a member to the Commission on
Science and Technology for Sustainable
Development in the South (COMSATS)
established as a platform of sharing, assistance
and research to promote the use of science and
 technologies for socio-economic development of
developing countries.
 a study was prepared with the title Critical
Success Factors in the Implementation of SDGs
in Member States of the Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The work
identified cooperation and partnership, capacity
building, good governance, finance, data and
monitoring, and policy coherence as the 6 critical
factors to achieve SDGs in OIC member states.
 E-government practices for providing public
services electronically have been expanded,
increasing their use in many areas such as
healthcare, social security, security and public
finances. While approximately 600 services
could be offered in 2012 on the e-government
portal, number of services offered as of April
2023 reached 4,641.
needed, Turkey is fully committed to scale up its
efforts to achieve the SDGs by 2030. This process
requires concerted action by all institutions and
members of the society ranging from central
government and local administration to the private
sector, from NGOs to academia, from elderly to the
youth. Turkey will continue its development efforts
with this understanding.
References:
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/
development-agenda/#:~:text=The%2017%20Goals
%20were%20adopted,the%20speed%20or%20scale
%20required.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/07/1138777

The establishment of the Technology Bank for LDCs https://www.oecd.org/wise/measuring-distance-to-

as a UN entity in Turkey in June 2018 marked the the-SDG-targets-country-profile-Turkey.pdf
fulfilment of the first global target in the context of https://hlpf.un.org/countries/turkiye
Agenda 2030, namely SDG 17.8
https://turkiye.un.org/en/about/about-the-un
https://thesaurus.com
Conclusion: Bearing in mind that SDG alignment is
a continuous process and that further progress is

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