The World will fail in achieving the SDGs by 2030 without significant involvement of the G20 countries

On September 17 SDSN launched the G20 Summary Report of the 2018 SDG Index for the T20 Meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The T20 summit brings together think tanks and research institutions which will submit policy recommendations to the G20. The G20 Summary Report is therefore more policy-oriented and focuses on the key messages of the data. The 2018 SDG Index shows that most G20 countries have started active implementation of the SDGs, but important gaps remain for all countries. This summary report aims to complement this finding by suggesting SDG priorities for policy makers in G20 countries. This report is particularly relevant as one of the T20’s Task Forces this year is dedicated to monitoring and implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The G20 Summary Report introduces a new population-weighted country profile for the European Union that shows the key challenges, both in trends and in levels, that the EU28 faces as a whole. The report features a new data visualization tool to highlight absolute implementation gaps among the G20 countries. These data show that G20 countries account for a large share of the gap to meeting the SDGs in absolute terms, with the EU, the US, China and India accounting for 51% of the world’s gap to meeting SDG 12 for Sustainable Consumption and Production. The summary report also introduces a new G20 dashboard and trends that show that no G20 country is on track to meeting the SDGs.