A policy brief from the Brookings Institution argues that the SDGs offer explicit benchmarks for the US government to measure progress towards its four top priorities. The SDGs can also help identify the impacts of current trends and who is most affected by them.

The authors of the brief – Tony Pipa, Krista Rasmussen, and Kait Pendrak – remark that the SDGs “largely reflect American values” and, while created in 2015, “anticipate the governing vision and key priorities” set out by the current US administration. When it took office in January 2021, the new government identified four dedicated focus areas: improve and protect public health; address the legacy of systemic racism; take forceful action on climate change; and build a job-rich and inclusive economy.

The authors of the brief suggest that the SDGs could support coherence for these priorities across policy realms, provide specific targets for assessing progress, and serve as a common frame of reference for communicating about “building back better.” Indeed, the SDGs are “firmly established as the lingua franca of the global development community.”

The authors observe that the US stands out for not having integrated the SDGs into its international assistance frameworks. The US is the only country out of 20 principal OECD-DAC donors that has not incorporated the SDGs into policies guiding their international development investments and strategy.

The brief also reports findings from an assessment of US progress on 56 SDG indicators from before COVID-19. The country was “on track” for eight indicators – including on poverty, clean water, and life on land, and “moving backwards” for 16 including on health, education, and peace, justice and strong institutions. A breakthrough or acceleration would be needed to meet the other 32 targets selected for the assessment. 

The brief reports that amid these findings, “flashing red warning signs suggest the future status and well-being of America’s youth, women, and minority racial and ethnic groups require urgent attention.” In addition, “gaps persisted on basic measures of human development” such as access to safe sanitation. The US was making progress, however, towards decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation.

The brief offers several recommendations to the US government, beginning with conducting a Voluntary National Review (VNR) and presenting it at the UN. The VNR would build on various US cities’ and states’ efforts to track progress, such as in New York, Los Angeles, and Hawai’i.

Other recommendations include:

• Establish a cabinet-level SDG Council to coordinate between the US’ policy leadership in the domestic and foreign realms;
• Engage civil society to establish a “shadow” VNR to highlight the needs and priorities of communities that are most impacted by gaps in SDG efforts, and inform national priority setting;
• Create a national SDG roadmap and commit to regular SDG reporting at both the domestic and global levels;
• Establish an open data platform to support building accountability and measuring progress;
• Host a US SDG Summit in the lead-up to the UN’s second SDG Summit in 2023 at the level of heads of state and government; and 
• Provide education and professional development to ensure “fluency in the SDGs” among government officials and leaders.

The brief was released on 16 March 2022. [Publication: The State of the Sustainable Development Goals in the United States] [Executive Summary] [Brief landing page]