The second edition of the Youth Solutions Report, which identifies 50 youth-led projects that aim to solve the world’s toughest issues, will be released on July 16 in New York during a launch event at the headquarters of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

The report’s solutions, which come from 61 countries and operate across all continents and regions, deal with crucial sustainable development issues, including clean energy, education, digitalization, e-participation, access to healthcare, ecosystem restoration, sustainable agriculture, and waste.

Like its 2017 predecessor, this year’s Youth Solutions Report provides these initiatives with a powerful platform to secure funding, build capacity, communicate experiences, and scale efforts. In addition, the 2018 edition includes in-depth analysis of the multiple challenges facing youth-led innovation for the SDGs and proposes a set of concrete recommendations for all stakeholders that can help create more integrated ecosystems of support for young change makers.

"The future belongs to the young, who are increasingly providing imaginative solutions to push the Sustainable Development Goals agenda forward, helping to solve the greatest challenges our world faces. Initiatives such as SDSN Youth and its Youth Solutions Report are confirming how important youth-focused programmes are in supporting the ideas and energy coming from the next generation."

Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer of Unilever and member of the SDSN Leadership Council

On July 16, the launch event of the Youth Solutions Report will be hosted by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and will be live-streamed online at 2:00 pm EDT at www.youthsolutions.report. The list of speakers is available on Eventbrite, where it is possible to register to attend the event in person.

"The Youth Solutions Report is a great platform to showcase the capacity of young women and men for creativity and innovation. Taken together, the brilliant solutions featured in the Report contain a call to future action, an invitation to trust youth as front-runners both in the present and in the future. We need to provide young people with tools and opportunities so that they can – and they will – come up with their own solutions to address problems that arise in their environment."

Forest Whitaker, UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation and Founder and CEO of the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative, said that young people are doers whose talent to spark positive change is yet to be fully recognized.

Siamak Sam Loni, Global Coordinator of SDSN Youth, added that while young people are already contributing to the implementation of the SDGs, they still face common challenges that prevent them from realizing the full potential, including the lack of visibility, limited access to finance, and the lack of training and technical support. “The 2018 Youth Solutions Report will help investors, donors, and supporters better understand the multi-faceted role of young people in sustainable development and give them additional opportunities to showcase and scale their work” concluded Mr. Loni.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was launched at UN Headquarters in September 2015 and adopted by all 193 UN member states. The SDGs, which are relevant to all countries, aim to achieve social inclusion, economic prosperity, and environmental sustainability for all people.

SDSN Youth is the youth initiative of SDSN, focused on empowering youth globally to create sustainable development solutions. SDSN Youth educates young people about the challenges of sustainable development and creates opportunities for them to use their creativity and knowledge to pioneer innovative solutions for the SDGs. SDSN Youth creates platforms for young people to connect, collaborate, and integrate their ideas and perspectives within the public policy field.

For more information on the Youth Solutions Report, visit: www.youthsolutions.report
For media enquiries and interview requests, please contact: solutions@sdsnyouth.org

The 2018 SDG Index and Dashboards report presents a revised and updated assessment of countries’ distance to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It includes detailed SDG Dashboards to help identify implementation priorities for the SDGs. The report also provides a ranking of countries by the aggregate SDG Index of overall performance.

Download the report

This year’s report includes several improvements and additions in comparison to previous versions. It incorporates trend data for the first time. New indicators have been added to cover more accurately the SDGs and associated targets with a special focus on “leave no one behind” for OECD member states. We present data for all 193 UN member states and estimate absolute SDG achievement gaps to complement per capita estimates. Building on the 2017 report, we expand the analysis of international SDG spillovers and present an overall SDG spillover index.

This year, three Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, top the global SDG Index ranking, yet all three still face major challenges in achieving the SDGs. Due to several changes in indicators and some adjustments in the methodology, the results from the 2018 SDG Index and Dashboard are not comparable to the 2017 results. In particular, changes in country scores or rankings cannot be interpreted as SDG progress or regress since last year.

2018 SDG Index and Dashboards Report generates six additional findings:

Most G20 countries have started SDGs implementation, but important gaps remain

Results from the novel survey on national SDG implementation mechanisms conducted by the SDSN and the Bertelsmann Stiftung show large variations among G20 countries in how the SDGs are embraced by the political leadership and translated into institutional mechanisms. Some countries have established dedicated coordination units, strategies and action plans, and accountability systems, while others lag behind on some or all of these dimensions. More data and analyses are needed to gauge the level of ambition and effectiveness of SDG strategies, tools, and processes.

No country is on track towards achieving all SDGs

For the first time, we are able to show that no country is on track to achieve all the goals by 2030. For example, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland top the 2018 SDG Index, but they need to significantly accelerate progress towards achieving some goals, including Goal 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production) and Goal 13 (Climate Action).

Conflicts are leading to reversals in SDG progress

Most developing countries have experienced significant progress towards ending extreme poverty in all its forms, including income poverty, undernourishment, access to health and education services, and access to basic infrastructure. Achievement gaps are greatest towards universal completion of secondary education. Countries experiencing conflict have experienced some of the sharpest reversals, particularly towards achieving Goal 1 (No Poverty) and Goal 2 (No Hunger).

Progress towards sustainable consumption and production patterns is too slow

High-income countries obtain their lowest scores on Goal 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production) and Goal 14 (Life Below Water). While no trend data are available for Goal 12, the data for Goal 14 suggest that most of high-income countries have made no progress in recent years towards achieving the Goal. Trends on Goal 15 (Life on Land) are also insufficient. They show that further efforts are needed to protect the biodiversity and support sustainable production and consumption.

High-income countries generate negative SDG spillover effects

High-income countries generate significant environmental, economic, and security spillover effects that undermine other countries’ efforts to achieve the SDGs. Yet, there is high variation in spillovers among countries with a similar per capita income. This suggests that countries can reduce their negative spillover effects without reducing their per capita incomes.

Inequalities in economic and social outcomes require better data

Newly added indicators for OECD countries focusing on inequalities in economic, health, and education outcomes lower the SDG Index scores for some countries. This suggests significant shortfalls in ensuring that no one is left behind, which are hidden by aggregate data. Such disaggregated data are unavailable for most non-OECD countries, so greater investments are needed to fill these data gaps.

The 2018 SDG Index and Dashboard report presents regional dashboards of SDG achievement and trends towards the goals. Country-level data on SDG implementation is consolidated in two-page country profiles for every UN member states, available in the “Country Profiles” section. Data profiles for each SDG Indicator are presented online on www.sdgindex.org.