20 September 2018
Top-Read SDG Knowledge Hub Stories of 2018 Point to Themes for UNGA 73
Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth
story highlights

The SDG Knowledge Hub’s 23 most-read posts of 2018 point to the issues at the front of readers’ minds during the third year of SDG implementation, and a base to build on as the world prepares for Year Four (2019).

The most popular news stories, policy briefs and guest articles share themes of: means of implementation for everyone, tracking progress at three levels, and pledges, partnerships and SDG review plans.

The 73rd session of the UN General Assembly opens today, 18 September 2018, and with it comes fresh hope for a year of tangible progress towards the Global Goals. The SDG Knowledge Hub’s 23 most-read posts of 2018 point to the issues at the front of readers’ minds during the third year of SDG implementation, and a base to build on as the world prepares for Year Four (2019).

Means of Implementation for Everyone

A strong theme among the most read SDG Knowledge Hub stories of the past nine months has been the means of implementation (MOI) for the 2030 Agenda, which, as captured in SDG 17 on partnerships for the Goals, include finance, technology, data and policy coherence, among other issues. On finance, the most-read Knowledge Weekly brief examines blended finance and private sector contributions to the SDGs.

Another popular Knowledge Weekly brief looks at the potential of a newer technology to contribute to the SDGs – blockchain. Similarly, a most-read news story reports on several new UN initiatives on big data for sustainable development. Still on the topic of data, the top-read guest article of the year (to date) comes from the SDG Tracker initiative, which unveiled a tool that allows users to explore progress on all of the SDG indicators for which data is available. SDG-tracker.org is “the first project to track the latest data across all of the 17 SDGs in a user-friendly way,” according to the project, and aims to support global participation and inclusivity in the 2030 Agenda.

Readers have also focused on articles about the Goal 17 target related to policy coherence. A popular guest article came from five members of the bureau of the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA), who reported on CEPA’s identification of 11 principles for effective governance for sustainable development.

While the CEPA commentary deals with governance at the national level, global policy coherence is a priority as well. The most-read policy brief for our readers this year provides “an annotated guide to the UN Secretary-General’s reform proposals,” spanning the three main tracks of UN reform that are in motion: management, peacebuilding, and the UN development system. The latter reform, in particular, aims to align the UN’s operations with the 2030 Agenda. A widely read news post from the start of 2018 delves deeper on this subject, reporting on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ strategy and proposals for development system reform.

The most basic “means of implementation,” of course, is individual action on a personal level, and a widely read story from early 2018 reports on an initiative to “turn worldwide enthusiasm for the SDGs into action” and guide personal engagement. The project created visual icons for each of the Goals’ 169 targets, along with abbreviated titles for each target, which it calls “the real working parts of the Goals.”

Tracking Progress at Three Levels

The most read stories about 2018’s biggest event so far for the SDGs – the July session of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) – have been those that hone in on national or local level action. Readers followed the running tally (here and here) on which countries planned to present voluntary national reviews (VNRs), and were particularly intrigued when the first “voluntary local review” was announced by New York City. A very popular policy brief reviews lessons from the 2017 set of VNRs, drawing on an analysis issued by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC) on countries’ experiences in reporting on and accelerating implementation of the Goals.

For a more general stocktaking of SDG progress, readers turned to a policy brief on “a year in the life of the SDGs,” a summary of the Secretary-General’s 2018 progress report on the Goals, and a guide to the 2018 HLPF agenda.

Pledges, Partnerships and SDG Review Plans

In a year in which the Secretary-General saw fit to issue a “red alert” for the world – citing worsening impacts of climate change, growing inequalities, and horrific human rights violations – good news and ideas for how to move forward were important parts of our subscribers’ reading material. Our top stories include announcements of a corporate pledge on recycling, the launch of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, and preparations for high-level discussions to fight tuberculosis and non-communicable diseases. These stories touch on several SDGs: 3 (good health and wellbeing), 7 (affordable and clean energy), 12 (responsible consumption and production), 13 (climate action, which is also the focus on two other popular stories here and here), and 14 (life below water).

Other SDGs at the crux of our most-read stories this year are: SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), with a forecast for strengthened economic growth, and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), with a highlight of the UN Secretariat’s yearly SDG report flagging that conflict, climate change, inequality, and “persistent areas of poverty and hunger” are key challenges to SDG achievement in countries around the world.

It is no surprise that climate action attracted the SDG community’s attention, especially as the Global Climate Action Summit has just taken place in San Francisco, Climate Week opens next Monday, and key UNFCCC meetings are taking place during the final months of 2018. Like SDG 13, Goals 8 and 10 will be in the spotlight at the next session of the HLPF, which will review them in depth along with SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) and SDG 17 (partnerships for the Goals).

The stage is being set for all of these issues and more to be tackled in the UNGA’s working session in late 2018 and throughout 2019. According to the most recent entry in the list of top-read articles for the first nine months of 2018, leaders’ high-level messages at the UNGA debate next week will pick up similar strands: making the UN relevant to all; support for multilateralism; and a vision for securing peace, equity and sustainability.

We will report on the highlights of Climate Week, Global Goals Week, and the UNGA’s debate during the coming weeks. (Subscribe here to receive regular updates.) We look forward to seeing which new stories resonate most strongly with our readers, and we welcome your feedback on the kind of information and knowledge that helps you make progress towards the Global Goals in your own work. Happy third anniversary, SDGs, and here’s to the 2030 Agenda’s best year yet.


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