The 2030 Agenda is the unanimous response of all the countries that make up the United Nations to the challenges facing our civilization, with climate change at the forefront. The SDGs are the roadmap that will mark the path towards a world where sustainable development prevails in its three dimensions: social, economic and environmental.

The strength and success of this global agenda rests fundamentally on three pillars:

  1. The transversality of a world erected as a system of systems dependent on each other. The SDGs have a holistic and comprehensive vision, with solutions that come from different fields, such as the challenges they address.
  2. An eminently scientific character. The goals respond to irrefutable facts provided by science – the reports published by the IPCC – such as solutions to climate change, the protection of biodiversity or the fight against poverty. These scientific data underline the interconnection of challenges and solutions: for example, biodiversity cannot be protected if poverty in all its dimensions is not tackled, or climate change cannot be addressed without a gender perspective.
  3. Inclusion. The 2030 Agenda has as its premise to leave no one behind. Unlike other previous agendas designed by the governments for the governments, the process of preparing the 2030 Agenda was carried out based on transparency and participatory governance. That is why it is a call to action for all actors: public institutions, companies, the third sector and civil society.

We are at a turning point. The pandemic has caused the achievements and the pace of attaining the SDGs to slow down. However, it has also made us more aware than ever of the need to achieve them. We have 10 years left to pull it off. The urgency of this decade therefore demands that all sectors take action to ensure greater social and economic equality and to address the climate emergency. But let’s remember that the changes require a transformation of our cultural values. Culture, together with education, plays a fundamental role in the construction of a new knowledge that leads us to contemplate about who we have been as a species, who we are and where we want to go.