What is SDG monitoring?
The 2030 Agenda states that all states should conduct "regular and inclusive reviews of progress at the national and subnational levels." This review of the implementation status of the SDGs is called SDG monitoring. It is the central tool for tracking sustainability policies and tracking progress on the SDGs. In order to be able to measure the comprehensive sustainability goals, the international community of states has agreed on a total of 169 sub-goals and negotiated 231 international SDG indicators. The Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG indicators at UN level is continuously developing the set of indicators. Minor adjustments are made during an annual fine-tuning process, and the entire indicator set is revised every five years. Each country is responsible for setting up its own national SDG monitoring system, which tracks the progress of national SDG implementation plans. This means each country can decide for itself which of these indicators to use for monitoring an SDG. Each state must also collect the data itself. For this reason, a variety of different monitoring approaches can be found around the world. To ensure that countries regularly inform each other about their progress and exchange information, the United Nations annually invites them to the so-called High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York, a UN body for coordinating global sustainability policy. Before the meeting, which lasts several days, member states have the opportunity to submit a Voluntary National Review (VNR) on the national implementation status and present it at the HLPF. In addition, there is the possibility to ask other countries questions about the implementation status and to give feedback.
How is the implementation status of the SDGs in Germany measured?
In Germany, monitoring of the 2030 Agenda is carried out by the German Sustainability Strategy (DNS). It is the central instrument for tracking and reviewing national sustainability policy. A national sustainability strategy was first adopted by the German government in 2002. The introduction of national sustainability strategies was an important component of Agenda 21, which was adopted at the World Summit in Rio in 1992. Since 2004, the National Sustainability Strategy has been updated every four years. With the adoption of the SDGs, it was revised and transferred to the German Sustainability Strategy in 2016, which has since been aligned along the SDGs. It specifies which indicators are used to measure progress and which measures are taken to implement the SDGs. Every two years, the Federal Statistical Office publishes an indicator report on the implementation status. These analyses are in turn incorporated into the further development of the DNS. The State Secretary's Committee for Sustainable Development is the central body that accompanies the implementation of the sustainability strategy and participates in its further development. The further development of the DNS is decided by the cabinet with the participation of the public.
Criticism of the DNA
Although the DNS is Germany's official SDG monitoring tool, only 35 of the 72 indicators in the DNS are international SDG indicators. More than half of the indicators are own, national indicators and thus have no direct relation to the SDGs. The lack of congruence between the indicators makes the DNS in its current form an unsuitable SDG monitoring tool. In addition, the small number of indicators in the DNS does not allow for a comprehensive picture of the implementation status to be drawn. This means that important topics are not illuminated and a distorted picture of the implementation status is given. However, not only is the selection of indicators in the DNS insufficient to reflect the SDGs, but also the target setting for many indicators is not ambitious enough to bring about real change and achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda. The 2021 Indicator Report shows that more than a third of the 72 indicators in the DNS are either moving too slowly or even against the desired direction. They are so-called "off-track indicators" - indicators for which the targets set are unlikely to be achieved. In the case of these indicators, particularly rapid and effective action is actually required in order to be able to curb the undesirable developments. The federal government's mere statement in the DNS that it is closely monitoring the development of these indicators is not enough to put development on the right track.
Civil society SDG monitoring
To complement and correct the official German SDG monitoring, civil society actors developed their own comprehensive monitoring concept: 2030Watch. In it, the data of Germany's official SDG monitoring (the DNS), own, partly newly developed and collected data and indicators were compared. The comparison of the results shows how differently the implementation status of the SDGs can be assessed, depending on the selection of data and indicators. Check it out for yourself here.