Sustainable Development Goals 2017 – the performance of Slovakia

The worst score was achieved in meeting the goal Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, the best score in the fight against poverty.

In 2015, a new standard for sustainable world development was accepted during United Nations summit in New York. 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals accepted by all U.N. member countries propose universal program to be implemented in every country. The member countries committed to achieve 17 development goals before the year 2030 and the progress will be monitored continuously according to an accepted set of indicators.

How to measure development

To track progress in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN Statistics Commission recommended more than 230 official indicators and invited countries to submit voluntary national reviews of their progress. Reviews submitted so far found that countries report best on socioeconomic SDGs, but they keep weak track of environmental SDGs and have problems with implementing the full range of official indicators.

To complement the voluntary national reviews, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) in collaboration with Bertelsmann Stiftung issued a first global unofficial report and SDG Index in 2016. The next year followed another report SDG Index and Dashboards Report 2017 with additional indicators and extended coverage 157 member states of United Nations.

SDG Index together with individual reviews should help countries with implementation of all development goals and enables them to assess their progress in comparison with other countries. In addition to governments, other stakeholders also play a key role in achieving SDGs such as business, foundations, universities, or the media.

Performance of Slovakia in achieving SDGs

Slovakia ranked 23th out of 157 countries covered by the 2017 report, with SDG Index score 76.9. Best score 85.6 achieved Sweden, last position holds Central African Republic which scored 36.7. Average score for 35 OECD member countries was 77.7.

Slovakia scores for individual SDGs:

According to the table above, Slovakia scored best in achieving the goal No Poverty. The review took into consideration indicators such as poverty headcount ratio at 1,9 USD / day or projected poverty ratio in 2030.

High score was also achieved in Reduced Inequalities, which assessed indicators such as wealth distribution of residents or share of the richest residents on gross national income.

The worst scores were achieved in Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, where Slovakia underperforms in research and development expenditure, share of researchers on employed population or filed patent applications. Poor results were also received in quality of overall infrastructure and international ranking of top 3 universities.

Moreover, Slovakia did not score well in Partnerships for the Goals, lagging in government Health and Education spending, financial secrecy and share of official development assistance on gross national income.

The listed indicators and assessments should be decisive in strategic planning of sustainable development of Slovakia as well as other U.N. member countries and could help them in implementation of important reforms.

Authors: Veronika Šaradínová, Tatiana Čaplová / Pontis Foundation