Dr Archana Verma
The Sustainable Development Solutions Network has released its annual Sustainable Development Report, which includes the 2021 SDG Index and Dashboards. The yearly resources provide data to track and rank the performance of all UN Member States on the 17 SDGs. The 2021 report also includes the International Spillover Index, which was developed by the report’s authors.
South Asian Countries' Performance
The SDG ranking includes the index of all member states of the UN regarding their performance in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Many developing countries have fallen in 2021 but there are many that have performed well. Special mention is made of Afghanistan which has risen from very low ranking from previous year.
India despite being the largest South Asian country, has performed poorly in its SDG achievement. In fact, India is amongst the lowest ranked in South Asia, ahead of only Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Following are the scores achieved by the South Asian countries on a 100 points scale -
Bhutan - 69.98
Maldives - 69.27
Sri Lanka - 68.10
Bangladesh - 63.45
India - 60.07 (120th Place)
Pakistan - 57.72 (129th Place)
Afghanistan - 53.93
In comparison, here are the scores of some other countries -
China - 72.06 (57th Place)
Indonesia - 66.34
Thailand - 74.19
Ghana - 62.49
Egypt - 68.65
Saudi Arabia - 66.30
Tajikistan - 69.76
Armenia - 71.79
Brazil - 71.34
Peru - 71.09
South Africa - 63.74
Here are some countries with stronger economies -
Finland - 85.90 (1st place)
US - 76.01 (32nd Place)
Japan - 79.85 (18th Place)