Assessing progress towards sustainable development over space and time

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Social Science
• Policy Studies

Background:

• 193 countries committed to 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Quantifying SDG progress is crucial for tracking global sustainable development efforts and guiding policy.
• Systematic methods for assessing spatio-temporal SDG progress are currently lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and test systematic methods for quantifying progress towards the 17 SDGs.
• To assess SDG progress at national and subnational levels in China.

Main Methods:

• Developed novel systematic methods to quantify SDG progress.
• Applied these methods to analyze spatio-temporal SDG progress in China from 2000 to 2015.

Main Results:

• China's national SDG Index score increased from 2000 to 2015.
• All Chinese provinces showed improved SDG Index scores during this period.
• Significant spatio-temporal variations in SDG progress were observed across regions, with eastern and southern China generally scoring higher.
• While 13 SDGs improved nationally, 4 SDGs declined.

Conclusions:

• The developed methods provide a systematic approach to track SDG progress.
• China has made overall progress towards SDGs, but regional disparities and declining scores in some goals highlight areas needing attention.
• There is a global need to track the spatio-temporal dynamics of SDG progress.