Sustainable Development Goals Reporting Metric for Developing Economies

Abstract

The current form of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reporting with targets set for 2030 leaves room for many interpretations regarding progress. This creates doubts for countries on whether they are on track to meet the 2030 targets. This chapter proposes a novel method for addressing this shortcoming in the evaluation of the SDGs’ performances of countries. A proposed annual target is incorporated in a weighted sum method (WSM) to determine an index value that is used to judge whether a country is off or on track in achieving the 2030 SDG targets. In addition, a Relative Comparison Score (RCS) is proposed that helps to quantify the extent of disparities in the achievement of goals within and among countries to support decision-making. The proposed metric by its construction also guides countries on the level of improvement needed to stay on track toward the attainment of the SDG targets.

Analysis using the proposed method shows that, overall, most African countries have been making steady progress toward attaining the SDG targets. However, the level of improvement falls far short of what is required to meet the SDG targets in 2030, and if this trend continues, no African country will attain (in overall terms) the SDG targets by 2030. Further analysis with the RCS shows that most African countries were doing particularly well on Goals 13, 14, and 16, whereas the goals needing much attention were Goals 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 17, of which more than 30 countries were off track in each.

The proposed metric is particularly recommended for evaluating the SDG performances of developing economies majority of which are currently far behind in attaining most of the 2030 SDG targets.