Sustainable Development Goals - How Can Japanese Local Government's Help?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were set to eradicate extreme poverty in 2000-2015, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are set to replace the MDGs after 2015. The United Nations (UN) is leading several initiatives to elaborate on the SDGs and has recognised the difficulty of achieving all goals together. According to the UN initiatives, achieving the SDGs will be an agenda for everyone, regardless of countries, to prioritize ending extreme poverty and inclusive development for all as well as achieving major global sustainability issues like climate change. This paper explores the Japanese way of achieving the SDGs both in theory and practice. Municipalities are one of the most appropriate scales to enable sustainable development, thus three case studies on Japanese municipalities have been conducted to see if the early stages of achieving SDGs can be enunciated.The results suggest that Japan through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) can facilitate the coordination of the most suitable sustainability practices including environmentally friendly technology transfer to aid-receiving areas in Asia. Its accumulated experiences with the MDGs and human security systems associated with JICA's approach will make the Japanese way of dealing with SDGs unique.There are significant opportunities for Japan to help the Asian region reach their SDGs and Japanese municipalities should be preparing for these.