An in-house discussion on the “State of SDGs: Perspectives from recent global reports” was held on the 29th of June 2021. This discussion was led by Ms Fabiha Bushra Khan, Ms Najeeba Mohammed Altaf and Mr Md Mursalin Hossain Rabbi. The global documents reviewed in this discussion comprised the ‘Sustainable Development Report 2021’ (SDR2021), the ‘Progress towards the SDGs 2021” published by the UN Secretary General (UNSG) and finally, the Bangladesh SDG Tracker.
The first key finding to arise from the discussion is that the Global SDG index has declined for the first time ever, as is reported in the SDR2021. This is further reinforced by the findings from the UNSG’s SDG progress report where COVID-19 is reported to have devastating impacts on the global SDG progress, especially in terms of poverty, employment and education. The report also states that given the current context, the world is not on track to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
Despite the gloomy global outlook, the SDR2021 report states that Bangladesh has progressed the most on the SDG index score and that the nation is ‘on track’ to achieving SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 4 (Quality Education). Bangladesh has already achieved SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 13 (Climate Action). However, only 9.9 per cent of a total 91 indicators have data in Bangladesh. In fact, majority of the National Priority Targets (NPT) under the SDGs in Bangladesh’s SDG Tracker either have lagged data or none at all.