HOW well is the world doing with Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals? Not nearly well enough, it appears.<\/p>\n
Three years after United Nations member states agreed on the ambitious 15-year programme at a New York summit, a third stocktaking of government efforts has been released: the 2018 SDG Index and Dashboards Report.<\/p>\n
Sadly, it shows no country is on track to achieve all goals by 2030. These include ending poverty and hunger, promoting good education, health and well-being, achieving clean water and sanitation as well as affordable and clean energy, and reaching gender equality.<\/p>\n
Leaders on the Index \u2014 a composite measure of progress across all goals \u2014 are Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, and the report notes that even they needed to up their game to reach the targets by 2030.<\/p>\n
Germany and France are the only G7 countries among the top 10. The United States ranks 35th; China and the Russian Federation rank 54th and 63rd respectively. Indeed, the report cites the US and Russia as having taken the least action towards implementing the goals.<\/p>\n
Detailed two-page profiles of SDG progress on every indicator that makes up the index are provided for all UN member states, along with trend data indication of how fast countries are progressing. Produced by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the report estimates whether a country is likely to achieve a particular SDG based on historic rates of progress.<\/p>\n
Overall, progress is slowest on some of the environmental goals. Whereas many high-income countries have almost completely eradicated extreme poverty or hunger, they obtain their lowest scores on such goals as \u201cresponsible consumption and production\u201d, \u201cclimate action\u201d, or \u201clife below water\u201d. And, low-income countries score significantly lower still as they tend to lack adequate infrastructure and mechanisms to manage key environmental issues. Low-income nations are, however, making significant progress on ending extreme poverty and access to health and education services.<\/p>\n
Says SDSN director Jeffrey D. Sachs: \u201cOnce again, the Northern European countries come out on top of the SDG index, and the poorest countries come out at the bottom. The implications are clear: The social-market philosophy of a mixed economy that balances the market, social justice and green economy is the route to the SDGs.\u201d<\/p>\n
How did Malaysia fare? With a 2018 SDG Index score of 70, Malaysia ranks 55th out of 156 countries, and 2nd within Asean, one rank lower than China but eight ranks higher than Russia.<\/p>\n