Sustainable Development Report 2023

How to Achieve the SDGs: The SDSN Framework

UN Member States must endorse a deep and overdue reform of the global financial
architecture. UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) identifies six priorities for
this reform:
1. Greatly increased funding for national and subnational governments and private
businesses in the emerging economies, especially the low-income countries (LICs) and
lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), to carry out needed SDG actions;
2. Revision of the credit-rating system and debt-sustainability metrics to facilitate long-term
sustainable development;
3. Revision of the liquidity structures for LICs and LMICs, especially regarding sovereign
debt, to forestall self-fulfilling banking and balance-of-payments crises;
4. Creation of ambitious, internationally-agreed criteria for sustainable finance that are
mandatory for all public financial institutions in high-income countries (HICs), middle-
income countries (MICs), and LICs alike.
5. Alignment of private business investment flows in all countries with the SDGs, through
improved national planning, regulation, reporting, and oversight.
6. A reform of current institutional frameworks and development of new and innovative
mechanisms to improve the quality and speed of deployment of international
cooperation, and the monitoring of progress in an open and timely manner.
All UN Member States should adopt long-term sustainable development pathways that provide
a stepwise and medium to long-term approach to guide their sustainable development policies,
not only to 2030 but to 2050, with particular focus on gender equality, social inclusion, and the
principal of ‘leave no one behind’.
1. Universal quality education and innovation-based economy: a massive increase in
investments in quality education and in science and technology innovation systems;
2. Universal health access and coverage: an expansion of health coverage to ensure
universal access to both preventative and curative services;
3. Zero-carbon energy systems: the transition by 2050 of energy systems to net-zero
emissions;
4. Sustainable ecosystems, sustainable agriculture, and climate resilience: the transition to
sustainable land use, healthy diets, and resilience to ongoing climate change;
5. Sustainable cities: urban infrastructure and services to ensure productive, safe,
inclusive, and healthful cities for a world that will be around 70 percent urbanized in
2050;
6. Transformation to universal digital access and services: actions by governments at all
levels to ensure universal access to digital services including online payments, finance,
telemedicine, online education, and others, while ensuring privacy and online safety.
Dire shortfalls in meeting the SDGs
The SDGs are seriously off track. SDG progress was already very slow in the five years to
2020. According to the annual SDG Index, global achievement of the SDGs rose only slightly,
from 64 percent in 2015 to 66 percent in 2019 – far too slowly to meet the goals by 2030, and
with highly uneven progress within and between countries.

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Then with the onset of the pandemic, progress stopped. As of 2022, the global SDG Index is
below 67%.

Investing in the SDGs

Development practitioners have identified eight major kinds of capital assets:

1. Human capital: The skills and health of a productive citizenry, supported by universal
health access and coverage, quality education, shared data and knowledge, promotion
of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and the appreciation of
cultural diversity.
2. Infrastructure: Energy production and distribution, land and sea transport,
telecommunications, digital information services, public buildings (e.g., schools and
hospitals), and safe water and sanitation.
3. Natural capital: The capacity and healthy functioning of ecosystems, to be protected by
ending human-induced climate change, protecting biodiversity, sustainably managing
freshwater resources, and eliminating toxic pollutants.
4. Innovation capital: The stock of intellectual property and data resulting from public and
private research and development, creative cultural works, and responsibly governed
and managed emerging technologies.
5. Business capital: Goods and services of true social value derived from utilizing the
machinery, buildings, information resources, and other capital assets that underpin
business productivity.
6. Social capital: Social trust and pro-social values, good governance and justice, freedom
of speech and the press, trusted scientific capabilities, and international cooperation.

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7. Urban capital: Spatial human settlements, notably in urban areas, that drive and support
productive and creative interactions across the other seven capital assets.
8. Cultural capital: Appreciation of the diversity of cultures, value systems, languages, the
traditional knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples, and artistic expressions.

SDSN’s strategy to achieve the SDGs

Long-term investment plans are essential for national success in meeting the SDGs. SDSN has
recommended six inter-related long-term transformations:
1. Universal quality education and innovation-based economy
2. Universal health access and coverage
3. Zero-carbon energy systems
4. Sustainable ecosystems, sustainable agriculture, and climate resilience
5. Sustainable cities
6. Transformation to universal digital access and services

Enhanced global governance for the SDGs

The SDGs are not yet properly incorporated into global governance. Systems coherence, and
ultimate success in meeting the SDGs, leads us to the following recommendations:
1. All United Nations agencies should put the SDGs at the centerpiece of their strategies,
programs, and reporting.
2. The World Bank and the other MDBs should put the SDGs at the center of their
financing strategies, performance reviews, and reporting.
3. The IMF should build its national reviews (Article IV), debt sustainability framework
(DSF), and country programming around the public policies and financing needed for
national success in achieving the SDGs.
4. The G20 should organize its financial cooperation, reporting, and metrics around the
reform of the GFA, as needed to achieve the SDGs.
5. All UN Member States should present VNRs at least once every three years. It is
especially urgent that the five countries that have not yet presented VNRs should do so
no later than 2024.
6. United Nations agencies, multilateral organizations, and Member States need to
increase investment in, and coordination of, national and international data and
statistical systems and scientific capacity to assess SDG progress and support
sustainable development decision making and investment, including disaggregated data
by region, social stratification, and other criteria as helpful.

Sustainable development to 2030 and 2050

The tasks of sustainable development – ensuring material human well-being and security, social
inclusion and justice, environmental sustainability, and global cooperation to secure peace and
sustainable development – are not just tasks to 2030. They are the preeminent tasks of the
coming generations, enshrined in several documents including the 2030 Agenda (2015) and

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UNESCO’s Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Towards Future

Generations (1997). They are the work of the 21st century.
We conclude by underscoring the vital, life-affirming importance of four key international
agreements: the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement, the Kunming-
Montreal Framework for Biodiversity, and the High Seas Treaty. These are signal achievements
of humanity, to have come together across all nations to adopt a common set of challenges. As
we have emphasized in this statement, our major challenge today is matching these soaring
ambitions with the means to achieve them, most importantly, the financial resources and
regulatory conditions for the investments needed to achieve these goals.
At the mid-point of the SDG agenda, we are far off target. Yet we have gained ground. Almost
all governments have committed to adopting SDG- based action plans; technologies have
advanced that can support the goals (such as green energy, green transactions, green jobs,
Earth observations, and artificial intelligence); and there is growing regional cooperation to
achieve the goals on the ground, through shared investments, knowledge, and policies.

The SDG Index and Dashboards

Based on the pace of progress since 2015, none of the goals is on track to be achieved globally
by 2030.
Those related to hunger, sustainable diets, and health outcomes are particularly off-track, as are
the goals concerning terrestrial and marine biodiversity, urban pollution, housing, strong
institutions, and peaceful societies.
Although on average the world has made some progress in strengthening access to key
infrastructure, covered notably under SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable
and Clean Energy) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), this varies extensively
across countries, and the world average remains too slow to achieve these SDGs globally by
2030.
The education dashboard focuses on access to pre-primary and primary education, as well as
on lower-secondary education completion rates.

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We estimate that on average only around 18 percent of the SDG targets are on track to be
achieved globally by 2030. These are notably related to basic health outcomes, such as
neonatal mortality and under-5 mortality rates, as well as access to basic infrastructure and
services – such as targets on mobile use, internet use, and the share of adults with a bank
account.

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Government Efforts and Commitments for the SDGs

Universal quality education and innovation-based economy

Education builds human capital, which in turn promotes economic growth, innovation, decent
work, and the elimination of extreme poverty, and helps overcome gender and other
inequalities. Countries must further expand and transform education systems. SDG target 4.1
calls for universal access to 12 years of free primary and secondary education, with at least 9
years compulsory.

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This scorecard shows that many countries around the world currently fall short of this target. To
reduce inequalities, governments also need to expand social safety nets. These should be
complemented by anti-discrimination measures (including those furthering gender equality);
improved labor standards; and measures to end all forms of modern slavery, trafficking, and
child labor. Investments in research and development will also help to promote economic
growth, which can contribute to reducing inequalities.

Universal health coverage

This Transformation promotes key investments in health and well-being. It aligns closely with
SDG Target 3.8, achieving universal health coverage and ensuring that all people have access
to the health services they need.
In the SDGs, universal health care (UHC) is considered a target in itself. For the SDG
Transformation scorecards, however, we consider UHC an enabler (input) for greater health
outcomes. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the WHO and other international institutions
had lamented the slow pace of progress towards achieving universal health coverage (WHO,
2019).

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Zero-carbon energy systems

This Transformation aims to ensure universal access to modern energy sources; decarbonize
the energy system by mid-century (in line with the Paris Agreement); and reduce industrial
pollution of soil, water, and air. More than 130 countries are signatories to the UN Climate
Ambition Alliance, and more than 50 have anchored their net-zero commitment in a law or policy
document (Net Zero Tracker, 2023; UNFCCC, 2022).
Many countries continue to provide substantial subsidies for fossil fuels, undermining their
initiatives to decarbonize the energy system, such as the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act
(IRA) and the European Union’s Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) (DGAP 2023). While comparable
country-level data are not yet available, the IEA has concluded that global fossil-fuel
consumption subsidies rose sharply in 2022, as governments attempted to shield consumers
from rising energy bills (IEA 2023, OECD 2022).

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Sustainable ecosystems, sustainable agriculture, and climate resilience

Unsustainable consumption is strongly interconnected with diets, land-use policies, and the
health of major ecosystems. This is why Transformation 4 calls for integrated transformations to
address dietary shifts, biodiversity, agricultural systems, and land-use policies. Bringing these
elements together is a main difference between the Six Transformations and the “six entry
points for action” presented in the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR, 2023),
which treats “Sustainable Food Systems and Healthy Nutrition” and the “Global Environmental
Commons” as two separate entry points.
UNEP estimates that 84 percent of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) have now adopted climate adaptation plans, strategies, laws, and policies
(UNEP, 2022). But there is a significant gap in funding these measures. Annual adaptation
funding needs are expected to reach US$160 billion to US$340 billion by 2030, and US$315
billion to US$565 billion by 2050 (UNEP, 2022). Establishing mechanisms to ensure that the
burden of financing human-induced adaptation is shared fairly and globally, and that the
countries responsible pay the costs of loss and damages, remains an important priority for the
international community.

Sustainable cities
Cities and other urban areas are home to around 55 percent of humanity, and account for 70
percent of global economic output. By 2050, these shares will increase to 70 and 85 percent,
respectively (Jiang and O’Neill, 2017). The OECD estimates that 105 of the 169 SDG targets
will not be reached without sufficiently engaging sub-national governments (OECD, 2020). the
COVID-19 pandemic has had lasting impacts on urban mobility, land use, property values, and
transport systems in developed and developing countries alike. Many urban organizations and
associations have mainstreamed the SDGs into their work programs, including C40, UN-
Habitat, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), and Local Governments for
Sustainability (ICLEI), as well as the OECD’s Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Cities and
Regions.

Universal digital access and services

Artificial intelligence and other digital technologies are disrupting almost every sector of the
economy: agriculture (precision agriculture), mining (autonomous vehicles), manufacturing
(robotics), retail (e-commerce), finance (e-payments, trading strategies), media (social
networks), health (diagnostics, telemedicine), education (online learning), public administration
(e-governance, e-voting), and more recently, clerical, drafting, research and creative work
(generative AI), as well as other fields in science and technology.
The Transformation 6 scorecard builds on the World Bank’s Digitalization for Development
policy framework (World Bank, 2022). It aims to capture efforts made to strengthen digital
infrastructure, data security, and government platforms and services, as well as the promotion of
key enablers such as digital literacy and privacy and inclusiveness (including bringing a social
and gender perspective to digital and technology policies).

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For now, the scorecard captures a subset of these different elements: we aim to improve
coverage over time. UN DESA’s Online Services Index assesses the quality of government
provision of online services; the ITU’s ICT Regulatory Tracker is a composite score of regulatory
and competition framework for the ICT sector; UNCTAD’s Global Cyberlaw tracker maps
legislation on e-commerce, consumer and data protection and cybercrime; and, finally, the
Inclusive Internet Index’s policy score assesses a set of policies on digital inclusion for women
and children and safety and privacy, as well as policies aiming to increase broadband and 5G
access.

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Lessons Learned and Next Steps

Prior to the SDGs, there was already a vast body of literature on how to define and measure
sustainable development (Brundtland 1987; Dasgupta and Mäler 2000; Stiglitz, Sen, and
Fitoussi 2009; Arrow et al. 2013). The adoption of the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement in
2015 established a shared vocabulary for sustainable development, oriented towards Agenda
2030, with the Paris Agreement aiming for climate-neutrality by 2050.
In comparison to previous international development agendas and goals, such as the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDGs incorporated from the start a strong focus on
targets, indicators, and monitoring – notably via the annual Voluntary National Review (VNR)
process.
Have the SDGs increased data cooperation and innovation?
Prior to the SDGs, countries lacked a standardized method of comparing their development
performance with that of their peers across a broad array of development objectives (for
example, health, education, climate, ending poverty, reducing inequalities, etc.). Nor did
countries have a common language to discuss and share experiences when tackling these
development issues. Furthermore, the SDGs have positively impacted discourse and knowledge
exchange beyond government officials. Many civil-society and private-sector actors have
become SDG-conversant, facilitating greater discourse within countries across government and
non-government actors.
Conclusions and next steps
Building on the past ten years of work, including the SDG Index, TReNDS, and a number of
SDSN’s initiatives, we draw five major lessons, which can serve as priorities to inform SDG
policies and financing.
1. Science-based instruments are needed at all levels to guide SDG action and strengthen
accountability. There are no magic numbers, but rather a suite of tools – including
indices, integrated assessment models, policy trackers, science panels, and geospatial
tools – that when combined can strengthen government capacity to implement the SDGs
and to target investments. SDSN’s new flagship initiative – the SDG Transformation
Center – aims precisely to provide a suite of science-based instruments and serve as a
platform for peer-to-peer learning and exchange among scientists, practitioners, and
investors on the next generation of SDG policy tools, analytics, and long-term pathways.
2. Additional investments are needed in capacity- building for statistics.The SDG Index and
TReNDS’ initiatives have, for some years now, highlighted the acute and persisting data
gaps that prevail at the global level for the SDGs, as well as the need to accelerate
partnerships and investments in statistical capacity (TReNDS 2019). Although the World
Bank’s Statistical Performance Indicators show signs of improvements in statistical
systems since 2016, poor and vulnerable countries (including SIDS) still lack the
necessary resources to implement the vision of the 2017 Cape Town Global Action Plan
for Sustainable Development Data (HLG-PCCB, 2017). According to PARIS21, funding
for data and statistics fell by almost US$100 million between 2019 and 2021,
representing the most significant drop in funding since the start of the SDG era (OECD
2022b). And as highlighted at the UN World Data Forum in April 2023 and reiterated in

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the 27 April Hangzhou declaration: statistical capacity in the poorer and most vulnerable
countries requires “an urgent and sustained increase in the level and scale of
investments in data and statistics from domestic and international actors, from the
public, private, and philanthropic sectors” (HLG-PCCB 2023).
3. We need to invest in data and science literacy to strengthen the science-policy interface.
According to major international studies, few 15-year-old students can tell the difference
between a fact and an opinion (OECD 2019b). In an information-rich and post-truth
environment, citizens and decision- makers need knowledge and tools to transform data
and science into evidence, actions, and long-term policies. Yet UNESCO estimates that
there is a nearly US$100 billion finance gap for countries to reach their education targets
(UNESCO 2023). The SDSN and its partners are increasingly collaborating with
governments and parliaments – and also working closely with business associations,
private financial institutions, trade unions, and academic organizations – to improve data
literacy and support science-based policy discussions to advance the SDGs at the
national and local levels. Strengthening the science-policy interface is key for
implementing long-term pathways for sustainable development.
4. Non-traditional statistics and science-based pathways help to address shortfalls in
official statistics; they could be further leveraged to inform investment decisions.
Developing official international statistics takes time. Especially when no suitable
methodologies or data-collection methods exist. Halfway into the SDGs, for instance, we
lack a good-quality international metric, available to most countries, to track
“mechanisms in place to enhance policy coherence of sustainable development” –
indicator 17.14.1. Nevertheless, building on the improvements in the field of industrial
ecology, the SDSN and its partners have included an evaluation of negative international
spillovers (one component of sustainable development policy coherence) in the SDG
Index since 2017. Non-official sources of statistics, such as citizen science, social
media, earth observation data, artificial intelligence (AI), model-based estimates, and
other pathways produced by academics and researchers, support greater accountability
and can provide a forward-looking evaluation of efforts to implement the SDGs,
complementing official statistics. Additionally, initiatives like the Climate Action Tracker
help provide science-based and forward-looking assessments of countries’ ambitions
and actions taken to further key SDG transformations. These types of assessments, as
well as science-based decarbonization targets and food and land pathways, can be
further leveraged in the design and assessment of public and private investment
programs for the SDGs, including sustainability-themed bonds.
5. Space-based technologies help address data gaps and timeliness, including supporting
the “leave no one behind” principle; they can be further leveraged via global
partnerships. Time lags in international data reporting can exceed two to three years,
including for key SDG indicators. With the elevated focus on and interest in data,
COVID- 19 has set the stage for new user expectations, with many users – especially
the general public – now expecting to obtain data in real time (Sachs et al. 2022). The
global community has mobilized space-based technologies to help provide more timely
and granular information on the state of the global commons, or on access to key
services (among others). In Europe, for instance, Copernicus, the EU’s flagship Earth
Observation and Monitoring program, was mobilized early on to improve SDG data
availability, timeliness, and granularity. And the new SDGs-EYES program will establish
“an integrated scientific, technological and user engagement framework, overcoming the

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knowledge and technical barriers that prevent the exploitation, combination and cross-
feeding of data and tools” to support SDG action. At the global level, UN-GGIM and the
Group on Earth Observations (GEO) aim to reduce the technical and legal barriers to
using geospatial data and to strengthen multistakeholder partnerships. And TReNDS’
Data for Now initiative is working to support countries’ capacity to deliver robust and
timely data to achieve the SDGs through user- centric approach, multistakeholder
partnerships, and use of alternative data sources, including space-based technologies.
The “TReNDS Data for Now” initiative draws on a user-centric approach,
multistakeholder partnerships, and the use of alternative data sources such as space-
based technologies to build countries’ capacities to deliver accurate and timely data to
achieve the SDGs.

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