Africa SDG Index and Dashboards 2018

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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal agenda, calling on all nations to pursue economic development, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability, on the basis of good governance. This report creates, for the first time, a measurement of progress on the SDGs tailored specifically to African countries.

However, the Africa SDG Index is more than a report – it is a tool for local and national governments, academia, and civil society to take ownership over African development trajectories and for revitalizing partnerships to achieve sustainable development. The Africa SDG Index and Dashboards Report can support national govern- ments in tracking progress and narrating their own development priorities, but important gaps remain. Investing in the improvement of statistical systems contributes to better informed policies, faster response times to pressing issues, increased civic engagement, and of course, markedly improved transparency and accountability. Recognizing this reality is an important part of this report, and we hope to see African governments move towards enhancing national statistical monitoring systems.

The report is also a call to action for governments to focus efforts on the SDGs with new information on where they stand. The Dashboards should help each African country identify priorities for action, understand key implementation challenges, and identify the gaps that must be closed in order to achieve the SDGs by 2030. We hope this report supports African discussions about priorities in achieving the SDGs and that it is operationalized into a tool for national and regional discussion and planning. Our vision is for an official day on which African countries will convene stakeholders in their respective countries around the SDGs, with this report presented as a useful tool for analysis and action. The “Africa SDG Day” would allow all actors to discuss appropriate SDG strategies given their national contexts and the findings of this and related reports. Additionally, we hope that the results of this report are disseminated in creative ways into local communities to spark collective and inclusive engagement on ways they can contextualize the SDGs and spur on progress.

Thank you for reading this first edition of the Africa SDG Index. We hope to continue this discussion throughout further annual publications of the Index, and support collaboration for the achievement of the SDGs in Africa.

Belay Begashaw
Director General, The Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa

Jeffrey D. Sachs
Director, Sustainable Development Solutions Network