The government of Korea has failed to adopt a holistic approach to the implementation of the SDGs. The fact that no link to or effort to integrate ongoing social dialogue into implementation efforts is testament to this. Furthermore, stakeholder engagement has been poor due to the fact that sufficient provisions have been made to ensure neither transparency nor civil society consultation. Trade union analysis highlights serious barriers to achieving SDGs 5 (gender equality) and 8 (decent work) in particular. SDG implementation would benefit from an enhanced inclusiveness, representativeness, accountability, and transparency of participation of civil society in the decision-making process.