Assessing Progress Towards the Achievement of SDG9

Abstract

The U.N.’s perseverance in fostering sustainable industrialisation has not rendered the expected results in the long run. Despite that the scope of SDG9 is reasonably well defined and communicated, there is much more to be done to make it a reality. Achievements on SDG9 have not been as positive as they might have. It should be noted that there is no trustworthy source of information that indicates with certainty the progress towards the 2030 agenda. The purpose of this chapter is to examine factors involved in the SDG9 reporting and other critical issues necessary to understand the progress and how we are progressing towards SDG9. From this point on, data for our debate come from several sources. Still, the primary outcomes come from the 2017 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020, the 2020 Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) independent assessment, and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) reports as well as scientific literature. Unfortunately, there appears to be a lack of reliable SDG9 information available, and what exists is hard to find. In general, information sources often offer qualitative information, and quantitative data are scarce. This situation is especially the case for the documents presented in the chapter, which provided a few statistics disaggregate data, making it challenging to analyse in-depth. The debate here presented does not seek to be a fully comprehensive assessment of their content. The analysis is not designed to interpret or replace the referenced documents, either. Instead, it is intended to illustrate the difficult task of measuring the progress towards SDG9.

Citation

Velazquez, L. (2021), "Assessing Progress Towards the Achievement of SDG9", SDG9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (Concise Guides to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 61-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-131-120211003