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Innovation demonstration zones for sustainable development agenda: a national pilot practice in China

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Abstract

The proposal for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) mapped out the direction for global sustainable development, prompting governments around the world to take action. The Chinese government promulgated a national pilot practice program, the Innovation Demonstration Zones for Sustainable Development Agenda (IDZSDAs), which has become a unique banner for the implementation of the SDGs after five years of development. This paper aims to summarize how China’s experience is worth learning from and provides a decision-making reference for the sustainable development of other similar countries. Based on the characteristics of the development of IDZSDAs, this paper analyzes the connection between IDZSDAs and SDGs at different stages, discusses the uniqueness of the former, and puts forth some suggestions for improving its development. The results show that China’s experience mainly includes two aspects: first, the construction theme of the IDZSDAs is directly related to one of the SDGs; and second, the bottleneck problem restricting local sustainable development is solved using innovative systematic solutions that have regional characteristics. After years of practice, the IDZSDAs have many achievements; however, certain problems still persist. These include the small quantity of IDZSDAs, the difficulties in declaration new IDZSDAs, the insufficient innovation in the development of IDZSDAs, and unbalanced development in different zones. In light of these issues, four suggestions are put forward to promote high-quality development of the IDZSDAs and contribute more China’s experience to the realization of SDGs.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the National Natural Science Foundation of China “Research on Transformation Mechanism and Pathway of National Sustainable Development Pilot Zones—Taking Shandong Province as an Example” (41601613) for funding support.

Funding

Partial financial support was received from the National Natural Science Foundation of China “Research on Transformation Mechanism and Pathway of National Sustainable Development Pilot Zones—Taking Shandong Province as an Example” (41601613).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography and Tourism, Qufu Normal University, Rizhao, 276826, China

    Peng Wang, Junli Li & Jinjin Hou

  2. Shandong Friendship Publishing House, Jinan, 250002, China

    Wei Sun

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  1. Peng Wang
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Correspondence to Junli Li.

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Wang, P., Li, J., Hou, J. et al. Innovation demonstration zones for sustainable development agenda: a national pilot practice in China. Environ Dev Sustain (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03906-6

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