Developing an index of sustainable development goals for local governments: the case of Gyeonggi province in korea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aims to develop and evaluate the indicators of Sustainable Development Goals (hereafter SDGs) for local governments in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea from the perspective of the glocal mainstreaming of SDGs and localization. Through surveys and focus group meetings, 35 SDGs indicators that are to be implemented by both the Gyeonggi Provincial government and 31 separate local governments were selected and an overall index was calculated by standardizing 27 indicators. Through the comparative analysis of the fuzzy-set, this paper revealed the four ideal types along with the arrangement of two variables, the socio-economic SDGs index (S) and the environmental SDGs index (E), which are derived from 31 local governments. In short, some examples of this arrangement are the Type 1 (S*E: “sustainable local gov.”) including Hanam City (fuzzy score, 0.729); Type 2 (S*e: “imbalanced local gov.(I)”) including Hwaseong City (0.862); Type 3 (s*E: “imbalanced local gov.(II)”) including Gapyeong County (0.922); and Type 4 (s*e: “unsustainable local gov.”) including Pyeongtaek City (0.650). As a result, this paper suggests policy priority should be placed on the local governments of Type 4 where all three dimensions of sustainable development pose challenges. Furthermore, it is important for Type 2 and Type 3 to enhance policy coherence for sustainability.