The global goals weve made progress on and the ones we havent Michael Green
In 2015, the leaders of the world
made a big promise.
A promise that over the next 15 years,
the lives of billions of people
are going to get better
with no one left behind.
That promise is the Sustainable
Development Goals –
the SDGs.
We’re now three years in;
a fifth of the way into the journey.
The clock is ticking.
If we offtrack now,
it’s going to get harder and harder
to hit those goals.
So what I want to do for you today
is give you a snapshot
on where we are today,
some projections on where we’re heading
and some ideas on things
we might need to do differently.
Now, the SDGs are of course
spectacularly complicated.
I would expect nothing less
from the United Nations.
(Laughter)
How many goals?
Maybe something tried and tested,
like three, seven or 10.
No, let’s pick a prime number
higher than 10.
Seventeen goals.
I congratulate those of you
who’ve memorized them already.
For the rest of us, here they are.
Seventeen goals ranging
from ending poverty
to inclusive cities
to sustainable fisheries;
all a comprehensive plan
for the future of our world.
But sadly, a plan
without the data to measure it.
So how are we going to track progress?
Well, I’m going to use today
the Social Progress Index.
It’s a measure of
the quality of life of countries,
ranging from the basic
needs of survival –
food, water, shelter, safety –
through to the foundations
of well-being –
education, information,
health and the environment –
and opportunity –
rights, freedom of choice, inclusiveness
and access to higher education.
Now, the Social Progress Index
doesn’t look like the SDGs,
but fundamentally,
it’s measuring the same concepts,
and the Social Progress Index
has the advantage that we have the data.
We have 51 indicators
drawn from trusted sources
to measure these concepts.
And also, what we can do
because it’s an index,
is add together all those indicators
to give us an aggregate score
about how we’re performing
against the total package of the SDGs.
Now, one caveat.
The Social Progress Index
is a measure of quality of life.
We’re not looking at whether
this can be achieved
within the planet’s environmental limits.
You will need other tools to do that.
So how are we doing on the SDGs?
Well, I’m going to put the SDGs
on a scale of zero to 100.
And zero is the absolute worst score
on each of those 51 indicators:
absolute social progress, zero.
And then 100 is the minimum standard
required to achieve those SDGs.
A hundred is where
we want to get to by 2030.
So, where did we start on this journey?
Fortunately, not at zero.
In 2015, the world score
against the SDGs was 69.1.
Some way on the way there
but quite a long way to go.
Now let me also emphasize
that this world forecast,
which is based on data from 180 countries,
is population weighted.
So China has more weight in than Comoros;
India has more weight in than Iceland.
But we could unpack this
and see how the countries are doing.
And the country today that is closest
to achieving the SDGs is Denmark.
And the country with the furthest to go
is Central African Republic.
And everyone else is somewhere in between.
So the challenge for the SDGs
is to try and sweep all these dots
across to the right, to 100 by 2030.
Can we get there?
Well, with the Social Progress Index,
we’ve got some time series data.
So we have some idea of the trend
that the countries are on,
on which we can build some projections.
So let’s have a look.
Let’s start with our
top-performing country, Denmark.
And yes, I’m pleased to say that Denmark
is forecast to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
Maybe not surprising, but I’ll take a win.
Let’s look at some of the other
richer countries of the world –
the G7.
And we find that Germany and Japan
will get there or thereabouts.
But Canada, France, the UK and Italy
are all going to fall short.
And the United States?
Quite some way back.
Now, this is sort of worrying news.
But these are the richest
countries in the world,
not the most populous.
So let’s take a look now
at the biggest countries in the world,
the ones that will most affect
whether or not we achieve the SDGs.
And here they are –
countries in the world with a population
of higher than 100 million,
ranging from China to Ethiopia.
Obviously, the US and Japan
would be in that list,
but we’ve looked at them already.
So here we are.
The biggest countries in the world;
the dealbreakers for the SDGs.
And the country that’s going to make
most progress towards the SDGs
is Mexico.
Mexico is going to get to about 87,
so just shy of where
the US is going to get
but quite some way off our SDG target.
Russia comes next.
Then China and Indonesia.
Then Brazil – might’ve expected
Brazil to do a bit better.
Philippines,
and then a step down to India,
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria,
and then Ethiopia.
So none of these countries
are going to hit the SDGs.
And we can then take these numbers
in all the countries of the world
to give ourselves a world forecast
on achieving that total
package of the SDGs.
So remember, in 2015 we started at 69.1.
I’m pleased to say
that over the last three years,
we have made some progress.
In 2018, we’ve hit 70.5,
and if we project that rate
of progress forward to 2030,
that’s going to get us to 75.2,
which is obviously
a long way short of our target.
Indeed, on current trends,
we won’t hit the 2030 targets until 2094.
Now, I don’t know about you,
but I certainly don’t
want to wait that long.
So what can we do about this?
Well, the first thing to do is
we’ve got to call out the rich countries.
Here are the countries
closest to the SDGs,
with the greatest resources,
and they’re falling short.
Maybe they think
that this is like the Old World
where goals for the UN are just
for poor countries and not for them.
Well, you’re wrong.
The SDGs are for every country,
and it’s shameful that these wealthy
countries are falling short.
Every country needs a plan
to implement the SDGs
and deliver them for their citizens.
G7, other rich countries –
get your act together.
The second thing we can do
is look a bit further into the data
and see where there are opportunities
to accelerate progress
or there are negative trends
that we can reverse.
So I’m going to take you into three areas.
One where we’re doing quite well,
one where we really should be doing better
and another where we’ve got
some real problems.
Let’s start with the good news,
and I want to talk about what we call
nutrition and basic medical care.
This covers SDG 2 on no hunger
and the basic elements of SDG 3 on health,
so maternal and child mortality,
infectious diseases, etc …
This is an area where most
of the rich world has hit the SDGs.
And we also find,
looking at our big countries,
that the most advanced
have got pretty close.
Here are our 11 big countries,
and if you look at the top,
Brazil and Russia
are pretty close to the SDG target.
But at the bottom –
Ethiopia, Pakistan – a long way to go.
That’s where we are in 2018.
What’s our trajectory?
On the current trajectory,
how far are we going to get by 2030?
Well, let’s have a look.
Well, what we see is a lot of progress.
See Bangladesh in the middle.
If Bangladesh maintains
its current rate of progress,
it could get very close
to that SDG target.
And Ethiopia at the bottom
is making a huge amount of progress
at the moment.
If that can be maintained,
Ethiopia could get a long way.
We add this all up
for all the countries of the world
and our projection
is a score of 94.5 by 2030.
And if countries like the Philippines,
which have grown more slowly,
could accelerate progress,
then we could get a lot closer.
So there are reasons to be optimistic
about SDGs 2 and 3.
But there’s another very basic area
of the SDGs where we’re doing less well,
which is SDG 6, on water and sanitation.
Again, it’s an SDG
where most of the rich countries
have already achieved the targets.
And again, for our big countries –
our big 11 emerging countries,
we see that some of the countries,
like Russia and Mexico,
are very close to the target,
but Nigeria and other countries
are a very long way back.
So how are we doing on this target?
What progress are we going to make
over the next 12 years
based on the current direction of travel?
Well, here we go …
and yes, there is some progress.
Our top four countries
are all hitting the SDG targets –
some are moving forward quite quickly.
But it’s not enough
to really move us forward significantly.
What we see is that
for the world as a whole,
we’re forecasting a score
of around 85, 86 by 2030 –
not fast enough.
Now, obviously this is not good news,
but I think what this data also shows
is that we could be doing a lot better.
Water and sanitation is a solved problem.
It’s about scaling
that solution everywhere.
So if we could accelerate progress
in some of those countries
who are improving more slowly –
Nigeria, the Philippines, etc. –
then we could get
a lot closer to the goal.
Indeed, I think SDG 6
is probably the biggest opportunity
of all the SDGs for a step change.
So that’s an area we could do better.
Let’s look finally at an area
where we are struggling,
which is what we call
personal rights and inclusiveness.
This is covering concepts
across a range of SDGs.
SDG 1 on poverty,
SDG 5 on gender equality,
SDG 10 on inequality,
SDG 11 on inclusive cities
and SDG 16 on peace and justice.
So across those SDGs there are themes
around rights and inclusiveness,
and those may seem
less immediate or pressing
than things like hunger and disease,
but rights and inclusion are critical
to an agenda of no one left behind.
So how are we doing on those issues?
Let’s start off with personal rights.
What I’m going to do first
is show you our big countries in 2015.
So here they are,
and I’ve put the USA and Japan back in,
so it’s our 13 biggest
countries in the world.
And we see a wide range of scores.
The United States at the top
with Japan hitting the goals;
China a long way behind.
So what’s been our direction of travel
on the rights agenda
over the last three years?
Let’s have a look.
Well, what we see is actually pretty ugly.
The majority of the countries
are standing still or moving backwards,
and big countries like Brazil,
India, China, Bangladesh
have all seen significant declines.
This is worrying.
Let’s have a look now at inclusiveness.
And inclusiveness is looking at things
like violence and discrimination
against minorities,
gender equity, LGBT inclusion, etc…
And as a result, we see that the scores
for our big countries are generally lower.
Every country, rich and poor
alike, is struggling
with building an inclusive society.
But what’s our direction of travel?
Are we building more inclusive countries?
Let’s have a look – progress to 2018.
And again we see
the world moving backwards:
most countries static,
a lot of countries going backwards –
Bangladesh moving backwards –
but also, two of the countries
that were leading –
Brazil and the United States –
have gone backwards significantly
over the last three years.
Let’s sum this up now
for the world as a whole.
And what we see on personal rights
for the whole world
is we’re forecasting actually
a decline in the score on personal rights
to about 60,
and then this decline in the score
of inclusiveness to about 42.
Now, obviously these things
can change quite quickly
with rights and with changes in law,
changes in attitudes,
but we have to accept
that on current trends,
this is probably the most
worrying aspect of the SDGs.
How I’ve depressed you …
(Laughter)
I hope not because I think what we do see
is that progress is happening
in a lot of places
and there are opportunities
for accelerating progress.
We are living in a world
that is tantalizingly close
to ensuring that no one need die
of hunger or malaria or diarrhea.
If we can focus our efforts,
mobilize resources,
galvanize the political will,
that step change is possible.
But in focusing on those
really basic, solvable SDGs,
we mustn’t forget the whole package.
The goals are an unwieldy
set of indicators, goals and targets,
but they also include
the challenges our world faces.
The fact that the SDGs
are focusing attention
on the fact that we face a crisis
in personal rights and inclusiveness
is a positive.
If we forget that,
if we choose to double down
on the SDGs that we can solve,
if we go for SDG à la carte
and pick the most easy SDGs,
then we will have missed
the point of the SDGs,
we will miss the goals
and we will have failed
on the promise of the SDGs.
Thank you.
(Applause)