Pilot report Urban Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change-related Indicators for Vietnam

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development^[1] represents the United Nations (UN) global plan of action for achieving sustainable transformation by 2030. The 2030 Agenda set up 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 specific targets, orientation for implementation, global partnerships and actions to implement international commitments. The Agenda has a revolutionary character because the four dimensions of sustainable development – social, economic, environmental and institutional – need to be considered in an integrated manner, pointing to the interconnections between sustainability, climate change, hazardous events and disasters (Sendai Framework), inclusion and well-being of people.

Human well-being is intrinsically connected to the health of natural ecosystems: their failure to be protected is in turn a threat to the long-term prosperity of development. Moreover, addressing inequalities in the distribution of development benefits is fundamental to global sustainable development.

The High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) is the body deputed to monitor the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the impact of the policies. HLPF in 2021 and 2022 emphasized the need for a constant review of national sustainable development plans and financing frameworks, to ensure the necessary resources for the change required by the Agenda. Ensuring that “no one is left behind” and building sustainable social, economic and environmental infrastructures is necessary to achieve the SDGs. Countries are required to submit Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), which devote a substantial portion to monitoring and measurement. The focus of the 2022 HLPF was on an in-depth analysis of the objectives dedicated to education and youth (Goal 4), women (Goal 5), protection of marine (Goal 14) terrestrial ecosystems (Goal 15) and Partnerships (Goal 17). In 2023 the focus will be on the objectives dedicated to water resources (Goal 6), energy resources (Goal 7), enterprises, innovation and infrastructure (Goal 9), sustainable cities (Goal11) and Goal 17, which deals with the creation of partnerships.  The pandemic has increased inequalities within and between countries and the climate crisis persists globally.

Such action plans also depend on the availability of high quality data and standardized statistical information including geo-statistical aspects, which are essential for sustainability issues. Indeed, the 2030 Agenda presents a constant call for concreteness and statistical measures. The Inter Agency Expert Group on SDGs (UN-IAEG-SDGs), established by the UN Statistical Commission, has identified a shared framework of statistical information as a tool to monitor and assess on progress towards the Agenda’s Goals.

After the 2016 version, the UN-IAEG-SDGs set up two revisions scheduled in 2020 and 2025, to ensure the update of indicators, the necessary advancements in their classification into Tiers and the preparation of necessary metadata^[2]. The 2022 UN-IAEG-SDGs revision made available 231 indicators^[3], although the total number considered is 248[4]. They are currently classified according to two Tiers: more than half, 136, are in Tier I, 91 are in Tier II^[5]. The activities for the revision of indicators and metadata have been initiated and will be concentrated in the forthcoming months. Particular attention is devoted to the increasingly intensive use of administrative data for the definition and production of SDGs statistical measures and to the need to implement data disaggregation, especially with reference to territory and gender.

The use of geo-statistical information and GIS for the production, visualization and dissemination of SDGs statistical measures has also led to the identification by UN-IAEG of a sub-set of indicators that should be disaggregated by geographic location, or for which geospatial information for the SDGs can be used for the production of the indicators themselves.

The actions to implement to achieve one Goal may be reinforced or, conversely, counteracted by those to implement for another Goal. For this reason, UN requested an integrated approach based on the analysis of the interconnections between Goals, targets and indicators.

In July 2022, the UN released a report based on available data on global dynamics^[6]. The Global SDG Indicators Database is available as well^[7]. It provides statistical information and is updated at least on a six-month basis.

[1] The Agenda was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015: it outlines at the global level the directions of activities for the coming years (UN Resolution A7RES/70/1, New York September 2015). In the same year, in coherence with the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Climate Agreement (UN Decision 1/CP.21, adoption of the Paris Agreement) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan) were also adopted.

[2] The first Tier includes all indicators with consolidated standards and methodologies and regularly produced by countries. The second Tier includes indicators that, despite a consolidated methodology and standards, are not regularly produced. UN-IAEG-SDGs metadata define the proposed monitoring indicators and describe the methodologies for their implementation.

[3] The Global indicator framework was adopted by the General Assembly in resolution 71/313 and proposed for revisions at the 51^st session of the Statistical Commission in 2020 and the 56^th session in 2025.

https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/

https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/indicators-list/

[4] See https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/Tier%20Classification%20of%20SDG%20Indicators_9%20Jun%202022_web.pdf.

[5] https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/iaeg-sdgs/tier-classification/. Given the heterogeneity of their constituent components, 4 indicators belong to several levels.

[6] https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2022/.

[7] https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal.