BASIC INFORMATION
AustriaWednesday, 15 July 2020
Early attempts towards national SD strategies included the development of NSTRAT, the Austrian Strategy for Sustainable development, adopted as a document relating to the federal level authorities by the Federal Government in April 2002. Two more work programmes were published at federal level: the 2003 work programme presented 200 specific measures and a second work programme (2004) with 80 additional measures.
Starting in 2006, a joint national strategy addressing both the federal and regional levels (ÖSTRAT) had been developed by coordinators and adopted by the Council of Governors in May 2009. In July 2010, the Federal Council of Ministers re-affirmed this decision, thereby adopting the national SD-strategy (ÖSTRAT), and adding new objectives within the jurisdiction of the federal level. ÖSTRAT was the first common SD strategy of an Austrian federal state (“Bundesland”) addressing both the national and regional level in Europe.
On the basis of the UN General Assembly´s adoption of the Agenda 2030 in late 2015, the Austrian Council of Ministers took an important step towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Austria in January 2016. Accordingly, all Federal Ministries were encouraged to develop action plans and implement the SDGs in all programmes and strategic approaches. Furthermore, an Inter-Ministerial Working Group was set up (IMAG), to support this process. Nowadays, the 2030 Agenda is subject to multiple strategic documents, such as the Climate and Energy Strategy #mission 2030, the Three-Year Programme on Austrian Development Policy 2019-2021, the Austrian Health Targets and others. Over the past years, the SDGs also became an important element of several regional strategies (for instance of the “Raumbild Vorarlberg 2030”, “Climate and Energy Strategy SALZBURG 2050” or the “Smart City Wien Framework Strategy 2019-2050”).
The current implementation at national level covers all three dimensions (economic, ecological and social) of SD, plus international issues according to the overall principles and targets of the Agenda.
While the NSTRAT had been coordinated by the then Federal Ministry of Environment, implementation of the Agenda is coordinated by the Federal Chancellery together with the Ministry of European and International Affairs.