SDG - Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by 2030. At the core of the agenda is a list of 17 SDGs that address the global challenges such as ending poverty or hunger, promoting good health and well-being or quality of education. They as well put in the spot the need for standing up for human rights and protecting the environment.

Monitoring

The European Commission is committed to monitoring progress towards the SDGs in an EU context. Since the adoption of the first indicator (May 2017), Eurostat has led the further development of the indicator framework including annual monitoring exercises. The SDG monitoring report aims to present an objective assessment of whether the EU has progressed towards the SDGs.

Status

Each SDG in a country is given status that is the aggregation over all the indicators of the specific goal, put in relation to the EU average. It is a relative measure, which also depends to a certain extent on the natural conditions and historical developments of each country. It should be noted that a high status does not mean that a country is close to reaching a specific SDG but it signals that it is doing better than the EU on average.

Progress

The progress value of each SDG in a country is based on the average annual growth rates of all assessed indicators in the specific goal over the past five years. Hence, it is an absolute measure not influenced by the progress achieved by other countries.