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ASEAN at a crossroads: Progress toward SDG targets by 2030
Data unavailability, unreported data and methodological gaps in applying the SDG indicators to measure progress could lead the region off course in achieving its 2030 targets.
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Members of K-pop boy band BTS take turns speaking at the SDG Moment on Sept. 20, 2021, during the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York City. (AFP/Pool/John Angelillo)
T
he Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal appeal to end poverty, safeguard the environment and ensure peace and prosperity for all by 2030, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Also known as the Global Goals, the SDGs were adopted by 193 member states at the UN Sustainable Development Summit 2015 in New York.
This year marks the midway point of the SDG agenda, with countries urged to achieve at least half of the progress required to accomplish the goals, according to UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). While some considerable progress has been made toward the Global Goals, a preliminary assessment by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) on 140 SDG targets showed that only around 12 percent of SDG targets were on track, while the rest were either moderately or severely off track relative to the 2015 baseline (UN DESA, 2023).
According to the UN DESA assessment, current trends indicate that 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty and that 84 million children will still be out of school in 2030.
The ASEAN region will become increasingly vulnerable to threats if its SDG targets are not met (Woetzel et al., 2020). Many low-lying coastal cities are at risk of flooding and typhoons in the region, where several least developed countries are located. Based on current trends, Asian countries, including ASEAN member states, are projected to fall short of reaching 90 percent of their SDG targets (ESCAP, 2023).
A lack of standardized monitoring and reporting tools is one of the primary reasons for the deviation from most SDG targets. It is not only important to have the necessary data to monitor countries’ progress toward the SDGs, but also essential to assess this progress in a comparable manner through standardized methodology.
In 2017, UN member states endorsed a global indicator framework consisting of 169 targets to measure countries’ progress in implementing the 17 Global Goals (Giles-Corti et al., 2020). As of this year, 231 indicators are used to assess countries’ progress toward their SDG targets (Kim, 2023).
Reviewed and refined annually by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGS), the 231 indicators have been deployed at all levels (Kim, 2023). At the national and subnational levels, they are used to measure countries’ progress toward their SDG targets, which are then reported in voluntary national reviews with the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) to assess global progress toward the SDGs and potentially rank countries accordingly (HLPF, n.d.).
