Bleak prospects and targeted actions for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

At the mid-point to 2030, progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) varies significantly across countries. While the classification of countries can lay the foundation for improving policy efficiency and promoting joint action, bottom-up, SDG data-driven country classifications have largely remained unexplored. Here, we classified 166 countries based on their performances in the 17 SDGs and further used the classification to analyze SDG interactions and compare development aid distributions. The countries were classified into five groups, ranging from “lowest development with good environment” to “high development needing climate action”. None of them scored highly in all SDGs, and due to trade-offs related to environment and climate SDGs, none of them can achieve all SDGs eventually. To maximize the potential for achieving the SDGs, all countries need to undergo a sustainable transformation, and prioritizing certain SDGs, such as SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), can help countries with lower sustainable development levels achieve more with less. Furthermore, global development aid should be better aligned with country needs, particularly in areas of education, energy, environment, and water supply and sanitation. By better characterizing different countries, this study reveals the bleak prospects of achieving all SDGs and provides valuable insights into more targeted actions for national sustainable development and global collaboration.