How far are OECD countries from achieving the SDGs? Michal Shinwell (michal.shinwell@oecd.org), Statistics and Data Directorate, OECD
T
he Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed by 192 countries in September 2015, are a call for action for all countries to work together in achieving freedom and prosperity through sustainable development. The SDGs are defined by 17 goals, underpinned by 169 targets, detailing what is to be achieved and how this could be achieved (the “means of implementation”) by 2030. In order to measure global progress on the goals and targets, an Inter-Agency Expert Group (IAEG-SDGs) was convened by the UN Statistical Commission to develop an indicator framework. The resulting list of 244 indicators, aligned with all 169 targets and 17 goals, was approved by the UN General Assembly in 2017 and is used as the basis for the global and regional UN monitoring of progress on the SDGs. As part of the OECD Action Plan on SDGs, approved by the OECD Council in 2016, the OECD Statistics and Data Directorate developed a study intended to help member countries navigate the complex landscape presented by the SDGs, by assessing the distance each country needs to go in order to achieve the SDG targets. This was first published as a pilot study in June 2016. Subsequently, also including member countries’ feedback and refinements to the methodology, a second edition was published in July 2017 with an expanded indicator, target and country coverage. The report including the third edition of the Measuring Distance to the SDG Targets study (oe.cd/to-SDG-targets) was launched on 20 May 2019, at a press conference held in Paris by the OECD Secretary-General on the occasion of the OECD Annual Ministerial meetings. This edition further expands the coverage of targets and countries, and includes new analyses on changes over time (trends towards or away from the targets) and on the impacts OECD countries have outside their borders (transboundary effects, as discussed below). It also shows where data are missing across goals, and how this affects the assessment of countries’ distances.
10 The OECD Statistics Newsletter - Issue No. 70, June 2019
The Measuring Distance study is closely aligned with the IAEG-SDGs’ global list of indicators, using data from the UN SDG and OECD databases, when available for a minimum of 20 OECD countries, as well as “OECD proxies” for IAEG indicators that are not currently covered in the UN SDG Database. It is the only international study to provide an assessment of OECD countries’ achievements on the SDGs at a targetby-target and country-bycountry level. Using publicly available data and a unique methodology that allows comparing performances across the different areas of the 2030 Agenda, the study covers 132 of the 244 indicators in the UN Global List, referring to 105 of the 169 targets. Data coverage is uneven across the 17 goals: those related to Health, Infrastructure and Education have the best coverage, with 90% or more targets captured by at least one indicator. Meanwhile, goals on Oceans, Sustainable Production, Cities, and Reducing Inequality fare worst on data, with less than 40% of the targets covered. OECD countries’ distances from achieving the SDG targets The SDG targets vary in both the level of ambition and their place on the the input-process-output-outcomeimpact chain, which makes navigating and prioritising across the goals a considerable challenge. Data gaps and the lack of explicit numerical targets in the 2030 Agenda pose further challenges for assessing countries’ distances to the targets and interpreting results. Since both data availability and performance on targets may differ considerably within goals, the Measuring Distance study results are best considered at the target level (Figure 1). On average, OECD countries are closest to achieving targets on access to basic amenities, such as energy (Energy, goal 7), information and communication technologies (Infrastructure, goal 9), and modern education facilities (Education, goal 4); as well as on maternal, infant and neonatal mortality rates (Health, goal 3); statistical capacity (Implementation, goal 17);