Report outlines SDG baseline
ASIA and the Pacific, a region with an impressive development track record, will need to step up its overall development reform effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, according to a new report launched by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap) yesterday.
The Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Goals Baseline report is the first regional measurement methodology of its kind. The report establishes a baseline for the SDGs through an innovative method that assesses regional progress since 2000, to illustrate which development gaps still need to be addressed to achieve the 2030 Agenda.
The report also identifies areas where there is insufficient data available to measure progress.
“While the region is making progress towards achieving the SDGs on poverty,education, economic growth, industry and infrastructure, and life below water, we are seeing slow progress towards ending hunger, achieving food security, delivering agricultural sustainability, ensuring good health and well-being for all, and achieving gender equality,” said Dr Shamshad Akhtar, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of Escap.
The report launched by Esacp at a side event co-hosted by Pakistan and Fiji, also shows that the region is moving in the wrong direction when it comes to the SDGs on reducing inequalities, creating sustainable cities and communities, and ensuring responsible consumption and production, a trend which must be reversed to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
