17 June 2025
NTS Bulletin June 2025
Biosecurity and the SDGs: Bridging a Crucial Gap in the 2025 Agenda
By Jeselyn
With just five years remaining until the 2030 deadline, the global community is gearing up for the 2025 comprehensive review of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Comprising 17 goals and 169 targets, the SDG agenda aims to end poverty and other deprivation through strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth while simultaneously addressing climate change and protecting the planet’s ecosystems. Amid those broad ambitions, one critical yet under-recognised issue stands out: biosecurity.
Despite its profound relevance to global health, scientific development, and peace and security, biosecurity is not explicitly mentioned in any of the SDG goals and targets. Yet its core principles and practical imperatives are implicitly woven throughout the SDG frameworks, highlighting the need for more deliberate integration in the years ahead.
Biosecurity in the Shadows of the SDG
The term “biosecurity” refers to measures and protocols taken to protect, control, and manage biological materials, technologies, and its relevant knowledge responsibly. Its main objective is to prevent the unauthorised access, misuse, loss, or weaponisation of hazardous biological materials. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the catastrophic potential of biological threats and renewed calls to strengthen global and regional biosafety and biosecurity systems. However, despite its pressing relevance, biosecurity continues to be largely overlooked in global development discourse.
Biosecurity could be seamlessly incorporated into the SDG agenda, as it is relevant to many existing commitments. Three of the most pertinent entry points are SDG 3 on Good Health and Well-being, SDG 9 on Infrastructure, Industrialisation, and Innovation, and SDG 16 on Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. These correspond to key global biosecurity concerns: pandemic preparedness, biotechnological advancements including dual-use research of concern (DURC), and the threat of bioterrorism.
SDG 3.D calls for strengthening countries’ capacity to manage health risks, which aligns directly with the aims of biosecurity particularly in terms of pandemic preparedness, laboratory safety, and disease surveillance.
SDG 9 and SDG 16 also intersect with core biosecurity concerns. While SDG 9 promotes scientific innovation and infrastructure, it fails to consider the dual-use risks of emerging biotechnologies, such as synthetic biology and gene editing, which can be misused for hostile purposes. Target 9.5 encourages research but lacks safe-guards for biosecurity oversight.
Similarly, SDG 16, which addresses terrorism and violence, omits bioterrorism despite its rising threat due to the broader availability of AI-enabled biological tools and knowledge. Strengthening national capacity under SDG 16.B with biosecurity frameworks and aligning them with global agreements like the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) could help close a critical gap in global security and development policy.
A Southeast Asian Turning Point
In 2025, ASEAN member states issued the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Strengthening Regional Biosafety and Biosecurity, a landmark political commitment to bolster regional capacity, harmonise standards, and promote peaceful biological innovation. This declaration signals growing recognition that biosecurity is a development issue as much as it is a security issue—touching on health, education, research, and international cooperation.
This regional momentum presents a strategic opportunity for Southeast Asia to become a thought leader in integrating biosecurity considerations into its implementation and reporting of the SDGs. By aligning national development plans with biosecurity-enhanced targets such as laboratory accreditation, biosecurity training, and disease monitoring, ASEAN states can set a precedent for other regions to follow.
Looking Ahead: Integrating Biosecurity into the SDG Agenda
In the newly released “ASEAN 2045: Our Shared Future” document, issued under Malaysia’s chairmanship, ASEAN has identified biosecurity as critical components of efforts to strengthen regional health systems. It also calls for the strengthening of regional mechanisms, including Biological and Radiological Defence Experts, to bolster preparedness. Hence, the 2025 SDG review presents a timely opportunity to main-stream biosecurity into regional development policy.
To guide this effort, three priorities should be emphasised. First, biosecurity should be explicitly recognised under SDG 3.D and SDG 16.B, with updated indicators that reflect laboratory capacity, implementation of the BWC, and oversight of dual-use research. Second, biosecurity must be embedded within innovation governance frameworks under SDG 9, to ensure that biotechnological development proceeds in ways that are safe, ethical, and peaceful. Third, regional leadership should be promoted and supported to address biological risks through coordinated action and greater investment in institutional capacity.
As the world grapples with increasingly complex bio-logical challenges, embedding biosecurity into the SDGs is no longer optional. It is essential.
Biosecurity and the SDGs: Bridging a Crucial Gap in the 2025 Agenda
By Jeselyn
With just five years remaining until the 2030 deadline, the global community is gearing up for the 2025 comprehensive review of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Comprising 17 goals and 169 targets, the SDG agenda aims to end poverty and other deprivation through strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth while simultaneously addressing climate change and protecting the planet’s ecosystems. Amid those broad ambitions, one critical yet under-recognised issue stands out: biosecurity.
Despite its profound relevance to global health, scientific development, and peace and security, biosecurity is not explicitly mentioned in any of the SDG goals and targets. Yet its core principles and practical imperatives are implicitly woven throughout the SDG frameworks, highlighting the need for more deliberate integration in the years ahead.
Biosecurity in the Shadows of the SDG
The term “biosecurity” refers to measures and protocols taken to protect, control, and manage biological materials, technologies, and its relevant knowledge responsibly. Its main objective is to prevent the unauthorised access, misuse, loss, or weaponisation of hazardous biological materials. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the catastrophic potential of biological threats and renewed calls to strengthen global and regional biosafety and biosecurity systems. However, despite its pressing relevance, biosecurity continues to be largely overlooked in global development discourse.
Biosecurity could be seamlessly incorporated into the SDG agenda, as it is relevant to many existing commitments. Three of the most pertinent entry points are SDG 3 on Good Health and Well-being, SDG 9 on Infrastructure, Industrialisation, and Innovation, and SDG 16 on Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. These correspond to key global biosecurity concerns: pandemic preparedness, biotechnological advancements including dual-use research of concern (DURC), and the threat of bioterrorism.
SDG 3.D calls for strengthening countries’ capacity to manage health risks, which aligns directly with the aims of biosecurity particularly in terms of pandemic preparedness, laboratory safety, and disease surveillance.
SDG 9 and SDG 16 also intersect with core biosecurity concerns. While SDG 9 promotes scientific innovation and infrastructure, it fails to consider the dual-use risks of emerging biotechnologies, such as synthetic biology and gene editing, which can be misused for hostile purposes. Target 9.5 encourages research but lacks safe-guards for biosecurity oversight.
Similarly, SDG 16, which addresses terrorism and violence, omits bioterrorism despite its rising threat due to the broader availability of AI-enabled biological tools and knowledge. Strengthening national capacity under SDG 16.B with biosecurity frameworks and aligning them with global agreements like the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) could help close a critical gap in global security and development policy.
A Southeast Asian Turning Point
In 2025, ASEAN member states issued the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Strengthening Regional Biosafety and Biosecurity, a landmark political commitment to bolster regional capacity, harmonise standards, and promote peaceful biological innovation. This declaration signals growing recognition that biosecurity is a development issue as much as it is a security issue—touching on health, education, research, and international cooperation.
This regional momentum presents a strategic opportunity for Southeast Asia to become a thought leader in integrating biosecurity considerations into its implementation and reporting of the SDGs. By aligning national development plans with biosecurity-enhanced targets such as laboratory accreditation, biosecurity training, and disease monitoring, ASEAN states can set a precedent for other regions to follow.
Looking Ahead: Integrating Biosecurity into the SDG Agenda
In the newly released “ASEAN 2045: Our Shared Future” document, issued under Malaysia’s chairmanship, ASEAN has identified biosecurity as critical components of efforts to strengthen regional health systems. It also calls for the strengthening of regional mechanisms, including Biological and Radiological Defence Experts, to bolster preparedness. Hence, the 2025 SDG review presents a timely opportunity to main-stream biosecurity into regional development policy.
To guide this effort, three priorities should be emphasised. First, biosecurity should be explicitly recognised under SDG 3.D and SDG 16.B, with updated indicators that reflect laboratory capacity, implementation of the BWC, and oversight of dual-use research. Second, biosecurity must be embedded within innovation governance frameworks under SDG 9, to ensure that biotechnological development proceeds in ways that are safe, ethical, and peaceful. Third, regional leadership should be promoted and supported to address biological risks through coordinated action and greater investment in institutional capacity.
As the world grapples with increasingly complex bio-logical challenges, embedding biosecurity into the SDGs is no longer optional. It is essential.
