In terms of innovation, there was increase in R&D expenditures and size of qualified labour force and speedy progress in the access to information and communication technologies. In Turkey, the share of R&D expenditure in GDP increased from 0.51% in 2002 to 0.96% in 2017. On the other hand, share of the private sector in total R&D expenditure increased from 28.7% in 2002 to 56.9% in 2017. The share of R&D expenditure in GDP % 2002 2017 0.96 0.51 The share of R&D expenditure in GDP The share of the private sector in total R&D expenditure % 2002 2017 56.90 28.70 The share of the private sector in total R&D expenditure One of the most vital elements that determine the R&D and innovation capacity is the workforce in the field of research. As of 2017, the number of researchers in full-time equivalents (FTE) was 111,893 and number of R&D personnel in FTE was 153,552. The percentage of R&D personnel in FTE employed in the private sector was 57% in 2017.A total of 7.9 billion TL (1.64 billion USD) have been allocated as of 2018 for setting up and developing research infrastructures for enhancing the R&D capacities of universities and public entities. In this context, central research laboratories have been established at universities as well as thematic research laboratories in various fields such as healthcare, aviation and space, energy and information and communication technologies at universities and public entities. Further, TUBITAK introduced cooperation-based and goal-oriented new support models for the industry and academia to increase technological competence and knowledge, utilise existing talents, develop original technologies and accelerate technological advancements. R&D supports provided to the private sector, regulations for establishing private sector R&D centres and developments at Technology Development Zones (TDZs) which will facilitate the cooperation with universities have been effective in enhancing private sector activities and employment in the field of R&D and innovation. UN Technology Bank for the LDCs, which would provide LDCs with access to and use of precision technologies and work as a technology bank to guide LDCs in the field of technology and innovation, was established in Gebze and started its operations in 2018. Turkey achieved significant improvement in access to information and communication technologies, particularly in mobile technologies. Access to technology increased with mobile subscriber intensity approximating 99.8%. 16% of the population had access to terrestrial broadband Internet in 2018 whereas the percentage who had access to mobile broadband Internet reached 75.3% in the same year. On the other hand, household Internet access rate was 83.8% while the computer and Internet usage rate was 72.9 95% of the industry used computers and internet, 66.1% of the enterprises had web pages that is used as online marketplaces . NEXT STEPS: The following policies will be implemented in the upcoming years to achieve SDG 9: • Scaling up digital literacy, • Implementing Turkey Transportation Master Plan works, • Addressing national and urban level spatial plans and transportation plans in a holistic manner to ensure sustainability of the transportation system, • Preparing a roadmap with the emission-free transportation perspective and promoting more environmentalist practice, • Implementing long term emission mitigation targets as well as punitive and rewarding mechanisms, • Strengthening integration among transport modes and combined transportation facilities, improving rail and sea transport particularly in freight transport, • Disseminating broadband Internet access infrastructures across the country, • Improving the quality and quantity of the labour force in the field of research which is a critical element of the R&D ecosystem, • Developing mechanisms for increasing cooperation between universities and the industry and ensuring information and technology transfer. 94 TURKEY’s 2nd VNR 2019 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS “Strong Ground towards Common Goals”
5.10. SDG 10. REDUCE INEQUALITY WITHIN AND AMONG COUNTRIES
In our country, there are legal regulations
to ensure equal opportunities for
employment, education, healthcare,
social security, social aid and elimination
of regional differences.
POLICIES
In addition to NDPs and strategic plans of relevant public
institutions, key policy documents related with SDG 10 include
the National Strategy for Regional Development (BGUS 2014-
2023), Rural Development Strategy, National Employment
Strategy (2014-2023), Irregular Migration Strategy and Action
Plan, Human Trafficking Combat Strategy and Action Plan,
Integration Strategy and Action Plan, Accessibility Strategy
and Action Plan, Financial Access, Financial Training and
Protection of Financial Consumer Strategy and Action Plan
(2014-2017).
The key components of the policy framework in line with SDG
10 are as follows:
• Empowering vulnerable segments particularly through
social transfers and other various policy tools,
• Enhancing social, political and economic inclusion of
vulnerable segments,
• Reducing differences in level of development among regions,
• Regulating tax policies in favour of lower income categories,
• Increasing the quantity and effectiveness of social aid,
• Making distribution of income more equal,
• Strengthening equal opportunities,
• Increasing participation to labour force and employment
particularly of young people and women,
• Ending all forms of discriminatory practices,
• Preventing informal employment and reducing
unemployment,
• Strengthening the link between employment and social aid,
• Improving financial conditions of the labour force including
particularly wages,
• Preventing work accidents,
• Increasing the effectiveness of our country in global financial
institutions,
• Improving financial access,
• Creating an effective monitoring and tracking system for
all migrants under various legal status, illegal workers and
transit-passers,
• Support migrants’ adaptation to the country.
LEGISLATION
The concept of “equality” has major prominence in our
legislation, particularly in the Constitution. The Constitution
enshrines the equality of everyone before the law without
distinction as to language, race, colour, sex, political
opinion, philosophical belief, religion and sect, or any such
ground. Further, the Turkish Criminal Code criminalises
“discrimination”.
IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS AND IMPROVEMENT AREAS
SDG 10 is assessed under three focus areas: i. Strengthening
economic and social equality; ii. Global mobility; and
iii. Cooperation with international economic and financial
institutions.
In terms of strengthening economic and social equality,
Turkey made progress in 2000-2018 in reducing inequalities
in income distribution, absolute and relative poverty and the
share of labour in GDP.
The income distribution indicators demonstrate that Gini
coefficient decreased from 0.428 in 2006 to 0.404 in 2016 and
is targeted to be 0.36 by 2023. While the share of the richest
20% in the disposable income in 2006 was nearly 9.6 times
more than the share of the poorest 20%, this decreased to 7.7
in 2016.
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Figure 5. Gini Coefficient • Gini Coefficient (%) 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 0.43% 0.41% 0.41% 0.42% 0.40% 0.40% 0.40% 0.40% 0.39% 0.40% 0.40% 0.41% Figure 5. Gini Coefficient (%) • As Gini coefficient approximates 1, it indicates an increase in the inequality in the distribution of income whereas it means a decrease when it approximates to 0. • Gini coefficient had fluctuated between 2006 and 2017 and changed from 0.43 in 2006 to 0.41 in 2017. • Gini coefficient was 0.32 on average in OECD countries in 2016. Poverty gap, which is calculated according to 60% of the median income and measures the distance to poverty line, decreased from 33.6% in 2006 to 25.8% in 2017. During the same period, significant progress was achieved in terms of reducing the size of informal workers working for relatively lower wages. Significant amount of resources was allocated for social protection expenses between 2000-2018. Income of wage earners increased, especially due to wage subsidies through tax and social security premium incentives provided to women, young people and minimum wage earners. There is still a need for implementing policies to improve income distribution. The Law on Occupational Safety and Health, which entered into force in 2012, improved relevant rights, payments and conditions. Also, union rights were broadened by the Law on Trade Unions and Collective Labour Agreement which entered into force in the same year in line with international principles. The Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey, established in 2016 to protect and improve human rights is vested with the power to review, investigate, make decisions on and follow the outcomes of the violations of the prohibition of discrimination ex officio or upon application. Any natural or legal person who claims to have been harmed by a violation of the prohibition of discrimination may lodge an application to the Institution after requesting a correction from the relevant party and failing to get a positive response. Preparatory works for the Human Rights Action Plan are underway in the context of protecting and improving human rights. On the local scale, Societal Equality Units have been established in many municipalities under the leadership of Union of Municipalities of Turkey. The Local Equality Action Plan is being drafted for 2019-2010 under UN Joint Programme “Women Friendly Cities”. MY SISTER SDG Targets 10.2 – 5.1 – 5.5 – 8.1 – 8.5 – 17.16 – 17.17 Executing Entity Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, Habitat Association, Istanbul Teknik University and Coca-Cola Turkey Start & End Dates 2017 - Ongoing The Project aims to socially and economically empower women to assume active roles in economy by equipping women with knowledge and skills for participation in economic life. Accordingly: • In the project provinces, the awareness of women is raised through training focusing on entrepreneurship, finance and technology; • Women’s active participation in social life is promoted by socio-economic empowerment; • Local and regional cooperation between women is strengthened; • Market access is facilitated and visibility increased for the products produced by women; • Organisations engaging in women’s studies at local level are strengthened through curriculum sharing and cooperation. Since the inception of the project, a total of 11,429 women including 537 refugee women were provided training on financial awareness, communications, information technologies and entrepreneurship in 30 provinces by 60 volunteer trainers and Habitat Association’s employees. In addition, inspirational meetings were organised with women who proved themselves and started businesses in the provinces. Through solution-oriented and inclusive growth models, My Sister Project improved participants’ presentation and marketing capacities to outreach to larger audience by the products of women’s cooperatives. Training on mobile photography, internet advertisement, product design and development, web design were delivered. Regional development agencies working for eliminating disparities among provinces and regions provide financial support in line with regional plans’ priorities; and regional development administrations do so in line with their action plans. Regional development administrations’ public investment projects support economic development, social infrastructure, human resources and private sector investments as well. In this context, regional development administrations provided 3.04 billion TL at 2009 prices (550 million USD) for 3,308 projects covering 2014-2018. 96 TURKEY’s 2nd VNR 2019 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS “Strong Ground towards Common Goals”
Development agencies provided 5.6 billion TL (1.16 billion USD) for 18,856 projects between 2008 and 2018 to support local development. Lowest national income per capita in Level 2 regions, which was 4.7 times in 2004, decreased to 4.3 times in 2017. Financial support were provided through the Programme for Promoting Centres of Attraction, Support of the Villages’ Infrastructure Programme and rural development accelerated regional development. In terms of global mobility, Turkey, historically a transit country for migrants due to its geographical location, has recently become a destination country for migrants as per its level of socio-economic development as well as humanitarian foreign policy. Since the early 2000s, there has been a significant increase in the number of foreigners living in our country with work and residence permits in the context of regular migration. The number of foreigners with registered addresses reached nearly 1,211,000 as of the end of 2018. The share of this population in the whole population increased drastically from 1.4% in 2007 to 14.8% in 2018. As of 2018, a total of 856,470 people were provided with residence permits. On the other hand, there was an increase in work permits over the years which increased from 22,000 people in 2005 to 85,840 people in 2018 including extension applications. The Turquoise Card System was introduced in 2017 as a new and easier work permit scheme to bring qualified labour force to our country. Further, there is still a need for continuing and diversifying programmes for attracting qualified labour force. Our country encountered a mass influx of migrants after the civil war in Syria, which started in 2011. During this period, Turkey adopted an “Open Door” policy with a humanitarian aid reflex and became the country hosting the highest number of refugees since 2015. As of February 2019, there are 3.6 million Syrians lived in our country.28 Turkey has recently been facing an increased number of applications for international protection in addition to the Syrian crisis. While the Syrians under temporary protection constitute the majority of migrants in Turkey, the number of foreigners applying for international protection is noteworthy compared to many other countries in the world. The figure was 8,932 in 2010 and increased every year to eventually hit the record high as 114,573 in 2018. Foreigners under international protection, are entitled to access rights to and services for education, healthcare, social assistance, and labour markets 28 See Chapter 4.4 etc. just as Syrians under temporary protection. Turkey is combating irregular migration on a human rights basis allocating significant amounts of resources. Aids and services provided to migrants by Turkey from its own national resources since 2011 are estimated to be about 37 billion USD as of February 2019. Combat against irregular migration has been effectively pursued in Turkey in recent years. Syrian migrants have been registered and provided with temporary protection status. Shelter, healthcare and education services and access to labour market and social aid have been provided to persons with this status. TACs were established in 26 locations in 10 provinces near the Syrian border. As of May 2019, there are 13 TACs in 8 provinces. As a result of the support provided to refugees to establish their lives outside the camps, the number of Syrians living in TACs decreased from 250,000 in 2017 to 139,000 as of April 2019. In 2013, the Board of Migration was established with the aim to determine migration policies and strategies of Turkey and follow their implementation; draft strategy documents and programmes and implementation documents concerning migration; identify methods and measures to be implemented in case of a mass influx; and identify procedures and principles regarding foreigners to be admitted in mass to Turkey and their entry and stay in the country. The General Directorate for Migration Management, which is responsible for migration management is organised in provinces and districts at the local level. It provides services with an organisation consisting of removal centres, receiving and accommodation centres and shelters for human trafficking victims. While the number of irregular migrants apprehended by law enforcement officials in Turkey, which is located on one of the five main global irregular migration routes in the world with Syria and Lebanon known as the East Mediterranean route, used to be around 50,000 people a year before the Syrian migrant crisis, as of 2018 it reached almost 268,000. In this context, combating human trafficking is continued with increasing effort which led to the apprehension of 6,278 migrant traffickers in 2018. In the joint declaration published as a result of the Turkey- EU Summit organised on 18 March 2016, an agreement was reached on coordinating the combat irregular migration in the Aegean Sea, preventing the death of migrants, joint combat against migrant trafficking and turning irregular migration into 97 TURKEY’s 2nd VNR 2019 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS “Strong Ground towards Common Goals”