Contains insights on current issues in research on sustainable development, featuring the SDG Index and Dashboards.

Contains insights on current issues in research on sustainable development, featuring the SDG Index and Dashboards.

The Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development 2021 calls for collective action to address both the short-term collapse in resources of developing countries as well as long-term strategies to build back better following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Sustainable Development Report 2021 features the SDG Index and Dashboards, the first and widely used tool to assess country performance on the UN Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The report analyses and outlines what needs to happen for the Decade of Action and Delivery of the SDGs. In order to build back better following the Covid-19 pandemic, especially low-income countries will need increased fiscal space. The report frames the implementation of the SDGs in terms of six broad transformations. The authors examine country performance on the SDGs for 193 countries using a wide array of indicators, and calculate future trajectories, presenting a number of best practices to achieve the historic Agenda 2030. The views expressed in this report do not reflect the views of any organizations, agency or programme of the United Nations. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Digital transformation is revolutionising economies and societies with rapid technological advances in AI, robotics and the Internet of Things. Low and middle-income countries are struggling to gain a foothold in the global digital economy in the face of limited digital capacity, skills, and fragmented global and regional rules.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit countries’ development agendas hard. The ensuing recession has pushed millions into extreme poverty and has shrunk government resources available for spending on achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This Staff Discussion Note assesses the current state of play on funding SDGs in five key development areas: education, health, roads, electricity, and water and sanitation, using a newly developed dynamic macroeconomic framework.