That the 193 UN-member countries agreed in 2015 on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the aim to reach them by 2030 counts as one of the most important decisions the entire world community ever took. Now the 2018 SDG Index and Dashboards report presents for the first time an assessment of all 193 countries’ distance to achieving the SDGs. It includes detailed SDG Dashboards to help identify implementation priorities for the SDGs. 

With its mission to get tourism engaged in achieving a globally complete network of protected areas, Linking Tourism & Conservation (LT&C) is actively engaged in raising the awareness of the SDGs by focusing and contributing to specific targets of the SDGs 14 (Life below Water) and 15 (Live on Land). Thereby LT&C works in close contact and partnership with UN-Environment and the Sustainable Tourism Programme of UNWTO. It is, therefore, interesting to see what the 2018 SDG Index and Dashboards report pictures on the SDGs 14 and 15. These are (together with the climate goal) obviously the goals very many countries, and in particular, the High-income countries, are farther away from achieving them than from the other 17 SDGs.

In contrast to the High-income countries are quite a number of the Sub-Sahara African countries doing quite well on the Life on Land. The best on SDG 15 are in fact Congo, Gabon and the Central African Republic, ranking otherwise on the bottom of the total index.

At least the findings of the 2018 SDG Index and Dashboards report encourage LT&C to keep its focus on the biodiversity SDGs 14 & 15 and strive even harder to achieve our goal to increase LT&C-Examples.

Here you can find, download and read the full report: 2018 SDG Index and Dashboards report