Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group has published a report highlighting the progress of the 57 IsDB Member Countries (MCs) in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The report, entitled ‘Reaching the SDGs: Progress of IsDB Member Countries’, finds that while progress has been made towards achieving the SDGs, the IsDB MCs have a long way to go if they are to reach the targets by 2030. The overall SDG Index score of IsDB MCs stands at 61.0, suggesting that IsDB, as a group, is just over 60 percent of the way to achieving the 17 SDGs.
Major challenges also remain, with disparities evident in the level of progress across the goals. Despite high achievement on some goals, such as Goal 13 (Climate Action) and Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), progress is low on others, particularly Goal 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), Goal 5 (Gender Equality) and Goal 10 (Reduced Inequalities).
There is also a wide variation among IsDB Member Countries in terms of achieving the SDG targets. In addition, SDG priorities differ from country to country. These reflect the need for the IsDB to adopt a more country-focused approach when assisting MCs with their initiatives towards attaining the SDG goals and to increase its cooperation with MCs in identifying and tackling SDGs of concern within each MC.
In his comments on the release of the report, Dr. Sami Al-Suwailem, IRTI Acting Director-General and IsDB Group Chief Economist, said, “This report contributes to IsDB’s efforts by providing data-driven evidence to guide the Bank’s interventions in MCs through a comprehensive presentation of countries progress towards the SDGs. It shows that MCs continue to face varied and unique challenges in achieving the SDGs, with some MCs falling behind others. Progress across different targets and dimension also varies as MCs struggle with competing development priorities.”
The report identifies that the most challenging SDG dimension for IsDB MCs is the Prosperity dimension, particularly Goal 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure). Indeed, the sectors that constitute Goal 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) are the core and essential sectors for the development of each MC. Therefore, the report recommends that IsDB Group may direct its limited resources to improving these relevant sectors. Existing interlinkages among the SDGs imply that contributing to the achievement of Goal 9 can also help towards the enhancement of other Goals which MCs are still struggling to address.
The report is structured in three parts. Part A gives an introduction and presents the main findings. It discusses IsDB MCs’ achievements on the SDGs as a group, covering issues on where IsDB MCs stand with respect to the SDG targets and achievement. Part A also presents the performance of countries aggregated to the level of IsDB Regional Hubs and gives a summary of the main findings of the report. In Part B, the results by regional hubs and MCs are shown graphically. Lastly, Part C provides details on the methodology.