Description
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for “Leave No One Behind” as a mandate for the world in the face of growing inequality, threat on the environment and the people due to climate change, loss of bio-diversity loss and growing ecological footprint (UN 2019). This paper explores what needs to be done with, and for, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) when and if the economic sanctions put in place by the UN and its member states for threats of nuclear weapons are lifted.
In an effort to understand how the UN process may work for North Korea when the economic sanctions are lifted or at least eased, this paper explores how the UN system has thus far engaged with North Korea and how that could change with a more proactive development cooperation process. Since the SDGs have been agreed for all member states of the UN until 2030 to eradicate extreme poverty, and bring about sustainable development, North Korea’s future development would be enhanced by global development cooperation within the broad UN framework of SDGs. Thus, this paper address three key questions: (1) How has the UN system engaged with DPRK?; (2) Which UN agencies and processes would likely work for DPRK once the UN sanctions are lifted; and (3) What preparations are underway in the DPRK and ROK for the proactive sustainable development process with DPRK?
