Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Abstract

The tropics is a vast rapidly growing region that has experienced significant environmental and economic change in recent years. Given its importance to the global economy, academics have sought to better understand the role that the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals play in this change. Using the SDG database compiled by the United Nations, our study examines the tropical countries’ efforts towards achieving the sustainable goals from 2000 to 2019. The different economic development levels across countries in the region allows us to assess how and to what extent the SDGs interact in countries of different economic growth trajectories. Following the World Bank’s country classification scheme, we ccategorize tropical countries into four groups: High Income (HI), Upper Medium Income (UMI), Low and Medium Income (LMI), and Low Income (LI) countries. Analysis for the four groups of tropical countries’ SDG achievement shows that LMI and LI countries still have a long way to achieve the SDGs related to economic growth and people’s economic wellbeing. HI and UMI countries are facing additional pressures around the sustainable use of water resources. Economic growth shows synergies with people’s economic wellbeing particularly in UMI, LMI, and LI countries, though little synergy was found with social wellbeing. HI countries, most of which are small island states, have experienced trade-off between people’s economic wellbeing (no poverty) and conserving the planet’s resources.