NEWS
“China will set up an International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to facilitate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda”, announced by Chinese President XI Jinping during his speech at the 75th UN General Assembly on September 22, 2020.
The UN 2030 Agenda for SDGs, with17 goals, 169 targets and 232 associated indicators was approved at the 2015 UN General Assembly, which is aimed to address the economic, social and environmental issues during the developing process, aspiring to attain a sustainable future globally by 2030. Especially, the challenge faced by mankind this year appears even more stressful due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
China’s launching the Center proves an active move for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. The Center will be the first-ever research organization in support of the SDGs implementation from the point of view of big data science and technology by integrating technological innovation, data service, talent fostering, and capacity building, and will serve as a think tank for relevant UN organizations and member states in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The Center will be hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which launched a Big Earth Data Science Engineering Project (CASEarth) in 2018 to promote the implementation of the SDGs.
Prof. Huadong Guo, the Honorary President of ISDE, one of the 10 members of UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) in support of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the chief scientist of the CASEarth said that the CASEarth had been building a Big Earth Data cloud service platform and a Digital Earth science platform, designing Earth science small satellites tailored for the monitoring of SDGs implementation, and had published 2019 and 2020 reports on Big Earth Data in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals , some achievements of which had been included in the UN 2030 CONNECT. He believes that the Center’s establishing will “provide solid support” for the global SDGs implementation.
