Tag: EUROSTAT

2018 EUROSTAT Monitoring Report highlights mixed progress on SDGs

Posted on by dariopiselli in EU News and Info, Sustainable Development Goals

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On 18 September, EUROSTAT issued the 2018 version of “Sustainable Development in the European Union“, its monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context. The Report is complemented by a range of additional materials, including a short brochure providing a visual summary of the Report’s findings, the “SDGs & Me” digital publication, a series of Statistics Explained articles on individual SDGs, and a revamped EUROSTAT’s website section dedicated to the Goals.

The 2018 Report highlights significant progress on Goal 3 (“Good Health & Well-being”, Goal 4 (“Quality Education”) and Goal 7 (“Affordable and Clean Energy”), as well as moderate progress for eight additional goals. However, the Report also underscores a worrying shift away from a sustainable development trajectory for Goal 10 (“Reduced inequalities”), owing to the ongoing rise of income inequality within EU member states.  Moreover, EUROSTAT continues to be unable to track trends for Goal 6 (“Clean Water and Sanitation”), Goal 13 (“Climate Action”), Goal 14 (“Life Below Water”) and Goal 16 (“Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”), due to the conspicuous absence of reliable data over the past five years. Lastly, broad progress on a Goal is in some cases hiding insufficient progress, or even negative developments, for specific areas within that Goal.

Overall, the EUROSTAT Report follows the evidence presented in July by the 2018 SDG Index & Dashboards Report of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), suggesting that the EU is not on track to meet all 17 SDGs by 2030 and that the level of ambition should be raised on the part of both EU member states and European institutions.

 

Sustainable Development in the EU: 2017 monitoring report

Posted on by dariopiselli in Sustainable Development Goals

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On 20 November, the Statistical Office of the European Union (EUROSTAT) published the 2017 edition of “Sustainable Development in the European Union“, its monitoring report on the state of the EU progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Report is the first to come out since the European Commission adopted its Communication (COM(2016) 739) on “Next Steps for a Sustainable European Future“, which maps the alignment of current EU policies with the SDG framework and provides for regular monitoring of progress. EUROSTAT has selected a subset of SDG indicators (100 out of 232) which are closely linked to the Communication, as well as to the accompanying document “Key European action supporting the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals“. For those indicators (16) to which a current EU policy target is associated, the Report explores the EU progress towards that target, whereas all other indicators are monitored according to the direction and speed of change. Progress at the goal level is then measured as an average of progress of individual indicators under the specific SDG.

According to the Statistical Office, in a five-year time span the European Union has made progress towards all SDGs, even though instances where the member States have moved away from a sustainable development trajectory are also evident within individual goals.  In particular, significant progress has been achieved for SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 15 (Life on Land).

This does not necessarily indicate that the status of the goal has already reached a satisfactory level for the EU. For example, progress on the conservation of terrestrial ecosystems under SDG15 does not mean that ecosystems and biodiversity across the member States are in good health. In addition, there have been only moderate advancements for eight SDGs, with SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) lagging far behind the others. Finally, for four SDGs (including SDG 6, Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 13, Climate Action, SDG 14, Life Below Water, and SDG 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), EUROSTAT concludes that it has been impossible to evaluate trends due to insufficient data, something which is particularly worrying in the context of fundamental challenges such as climate change, degradation of marine ecosystems, and a rising authoritarian wave in the European continent.

To read all the key trends and statistics from the Report, download it here.