The SDGs encompass all the key development sectors including education, health, sanitation, employment, infrastructure, energy, and environment, and set time-bound targets to achieve them. From a global perspective and in its own cause, the need for India to achieve these targets remains imperative. Significant progress has already been made across the country in recent years; the tempo of progress must be modulated in an evidence-backed manner to fully achieve the SDGs.
Under the federal set up, the Indian States and Union Territories (UTs) are the key movers on the SDG action agenda and have continued to make gains on various SDG targets. NITI Aayog, as the nodal institution for SDGs, has striven to provide necessary encouragement and support to forge collaborative momentum among them. Since 2018, the SDG India Index & Dashboard has worked as a powerful tool to bring SDGs clearly and firmly into the policy arena in our States and UTs. The Index has, undoubtedly, become the mainframe instrument to measure progress of the States and UTs and provide inputs for evidence-driven action towards the attainment of SDGs, while instilling a tremendous spirit of competition among our sub-national constituents. Calibrating the extent of progress in a comparative context, the two editions of the Index & Dashboard, launched in 2018 and 2019, have helped identify issues and areas needing improvement, pointed out strategies and interventions that could be a source of solutions, and opened up space for peer learning. They have highlighted gaps in the national and sub-national statistical systems and put the much-needed stress on robust SDG monitoring and review – not only at the national level, but more so at the sub-national levels of governance. Continuing on the same trajectory, this latest edition of the SDG India Index attempts to highlight the achievements so far, and indicate the distance remaining to the final targets that mandate primary focus of all levels of government in this Decade of Action. The Index Report & Dashboard – now an annual exercise, has grown to become the country’s official and principal tool for SDG monitoring at the national and sub-national levels, owing to its methodological robustness, inclusivity by ensuring active participation of Union ministries and State governments, and transparent process.
Behind the endeavours to achieving the SDG targets, often not quite visible, is the force of partnership among various stakeholders – government, academia, civil society, businesses, development partners, international organisations, etc. The scope, scale and complexity of the mutually reinforcing aspects of economic, social, and environmental transformation that SDGs require, bring these multiple stakeholders together and make them complement each other’s efforts. Such synergies can give birth to innovative ways of working, muster new expertise, widen access to resources, and facilitate sharing of responsibility and accountability in multi-sectoral engagements catering to a diverse clientele. Over the last ve years, the SDG implementation process has given…
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