EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Brussels, 15.5.2023

SWD(2023) 701 final

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT

Statistical and analytical Annex

Accompanying the document

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

EU Voluntary Review on progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

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Introduction

The aim of this statistical and analytical annex is to showcase the EU SDG indicators and their development since the SDGs were adopted in 2015. The annex also presents synergies and trade-offs between the SDGs based on a literature review carried out by the Joint Research Centre, together with an overview of how interlinkages apply to EU reporting on Official Development Assistance (ODA) in support of SDG implementation outside the EU.

EU SDG indicators

This statistical and analytical annex (SAA) presents EU-level data for the official EU SDG indicators, to accompany the first EU Voluntary Review. The data and figures in this annex refer to the 2023 edition of the EU SDG indicator set. The indicator set was developed by the European Commission in 2017 to monitor the SDGs in an EU context. The selection of indicators is updated every year. The EU SDG indicator set serves as the basis for Eurostat’s annual monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context.

The 2023 edition of the EU SDG indicator set consists of 100 indicators that are structured along the 17 SDGs and cover the social, economic, environmental and institutional dimensions of sustainability as represented by the Agenda 2030. Each SDG is covered by a maximum of six main indicators. They have been selected to reflect the SDGs’ broad objectives and ambitions, taking into account their policy relevance from an EU perspective, availability, country coverage, data freshness and statistical quality.

The EU SDG indicator set is aligned as far as appropriate with the UN list of global indicators. However, the UN indicators are selected for global level reporting for countries at all levels of development and are therefore not always relevant in an EU context. Moreover, the EU SDG indicators have strong links with EU policy initiatives. Therefore, preference is given to indicators which are also part of a high-level scoreboard of EU policies such as the social scoreboard for the European pillar of social rights or the monitoring framework for the 8th environment action programme (EAP). Focus can also vary on some issues – for example, on SDG 2 ‘Zero hunger’ the EU focuses more on environmentally sustainable agriculture compared to the global level.

Within this context, 68 of the current EU SDG indicators are aligned with the UN SDG indicators. A total of 33 indicators are ‘multi-purpose’, meaning they are used to monitor more than one goal. This highlights the interlinkages between different goals. As a result, each goal is monitored through 7 to 11 indicators in total. A total of 24 indicators have a policy target with a level defined by the EU to be reached in the coming years. The EU SDG indicator set is reviewed annually to consider new policy developments and priorities and include new indicators as methodologies, technologies and data sources evolve over time. The annual review involves many services of the European Commission, European agencies such as the European Environment Agency (EEA), national statistical institutions in the EU Member States, and civil society.

In this statistical and analytical annex, the EU SDG indicators are presented in a manner that reflects different aspects within a goal, consistent with the approach in the annual Eurostat monitoring reports. ‘Multi-purpose’ indicators are only shown once, for example ‘Road traffic deaths’ are reported under SDG 11, although it is also an indicator for SDG 3. The indicator presentation focuses on the period starting from 2015 – the year the 2030 Agenda was adopted – until the latest available data point (usually 2022 or 2021). To facilitate comparison with EU trends before the start of SDG implementation, the charts in this annex usually show development since 2010 in a lighter colour than the time series from 2015 onwards. For indicators with a quantifiable target, where there is an EU policy setting a level set to be achieved, the target and the year by which it should be achieved are also shown on the graph. The graphs are accompanied by a short definition of each indicator.

For a more in-depth analysis of the EU’s progress towards the SDGs, see Eurostat’s publication Sustainable Development in the European Union – Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context - 2022 edition and the accompanying communication products and interactive visualisations on https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi . All available breakdowns of the EU SDG indicators, for example breakdown by regions and age, are also presented here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/database .

In addition, Eurostat publishes a broad range of statistics and publications on topics relevant for the implementation of the SDGs: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/main/home . 

Mapping EU policies with the 2030 Agenda and the SDG targets

The Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) carried out a study to investigate the way in which SDGs are mainstreamed into EU policies. It analysed how the current Commission’s policy initiatives (more than 6 000 documents between 2019 and 2022) are semantically linked to the 2030 Agenda and to the content of the SDG targets ( JRC, 2023 ). A general overview of the number of policy documents addressing the different SDG targets is provided in the bubble chart below: the size of each bubble corresponds to the total number of policy initiatives linked to the respective SDG target.

Direct references to SDGs were found in almost 900 out of 6 000 documents analysed. A large number of policy initiatives in the last triennium revealed links with SDG 3 and target 3.d 1 (on managing global health risks) and SDG8 on decent work and economic growth, as a policy response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other frequently detected SDG targets highlight the EU’s commitment to achieving its EU political priorities, such as target 9.5 on enhancing scientific research and fostering innovation which links to ‘A Europe fit for the digital age’. Targets 8.1 on sustainable growth, 8.3 on job creation and 8.5 on decent work and productive employment support ‘An economy that works for the people’ through policy initiatives, such as the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund. Targets 10.3 on reducing inequalities and 16.3 on promoting the rule of law link to the Commission’s priority of ‘Promoting our European way of life’. The ‘European Green Deal’ is fostered by a myriad of policy initiatives that link to various UN targets under numerous SDGs (most detected targets are: 2.1 on food security, 2.3 on agricultural production, 7.2 on increasing renewable energy shares, 7.3 on energy efficiency, 12.5 on waste management, 13.2 on integrating climate change measures into national policy making, 15.2 on deforestation and 15.5 on biodiversity). 

The results of the analysis as well as the underlying database with the list of all EU policies and their relation to the SDG framework are available on the Commission’s KnowSDGs platform . This platform includes an online tool, the SDG mapper, accessible to registered users to carry out mappings on the relevant SDGs in any document.

Figure 1: Goals and UN targets of the SDG framework addressed by EU policy documents, 2019–2022

Note: The size of the bubbles depends on the number of EU policy documents addressing a specific UN target.

Source: JRC information, based on EUR-Lex data (EU policy documents available for the period 01/12/2019 to 15/01/2022)

Synergies and trade-offs between SDGs

As described in the EU Voluntary Review main report and the introduction of the main annex by SDG, SDG interlinkages refer to the complex network of interconnections that exist across the SDGs, their targets and indicators: these interconnections can be positive (synergies), negative (trade-offs) or both, and can happen at different geographical and temporal scales with different impacts.  The  JRC SDG Interlinkages Tool on the KnowSDGs Platform  is based on an exhaustive review and in-depth analysis of the interlinkages described in the literature published from 2015, the year of adoption of the 2030 Agenda, to August 2022. The database of the JRC SDG Interlinkages Tool contains more than 18 000 interlinkages with information on the type of interlinkages, the direction of impact, its description, and the geographical and temporal scales among other variables. The richness of the database and the level of granularity captured makes the Tool a valuable source to analyse the cascading interactions that exist across the SDGs. The figures on interlinkages presented in this document are drawn up using the Tool and its database. For that purpose, interlinkages with clear directionality, i.e., with a clear source of impact, were aggregated at the goal level in order to visualise the positive and negative effect of one specific SDG on the rest of the SDG network. 

Official Development Assistance (ODA) and SDGs

In the main annex by SDG, quantitative information is provided on how external action by EU institutions 2 , and as a complement the EU and the Member States collectively as Team Europe, contributes to each SDG, based on reporting on SDGs to the OECD. Given that many projects are designed and reported as contributing to several SDGs, the figures mentioned in each SDG chapter aim to gather information on all projects relevant to any given SDG, but should not be aggregated in raw, to avoid double counting.

Reporting on the SDGs often faces concerns regarding double counting. To mitigate such concerns, the Commission’s methodology for reporting ODA contribution to the SDGs incorporates the additional feature of indicating for each project not only all the relevant SDGs, but also to identify one main SDG per project 3 . As described recently in the 2022 Annual Report on the Implementation of the EU’s External Action Instruments in 2021, with this combined information, the sum of financial flows related to the main SDG reported in each project will always equal the total amount of financial flows, while the reporting of other significant SDGs will allow to visualise how many projects are relevant to any given SDG, thereby providing a better understanding of interlinkages between SDGs (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Synthesis of the volume of ODA commitments for each SDG (as main SDG and significant SDG) in 2021 (commitments)

Note: Main SDG amounts are represented by the darker colours, whereas significant SDG amounts are shown by transparently coloured bars

Source: The 2022 Annual Report on the Implementation of the European Union’s External Action Instruments in 2021, Section 5.1.3 (New reporting system on SDGs), page 173.

Based on this combined information about which SDGs were reported as main SDG and as significant SDG, and aggregating data on such correspondences, the Commission has developed its understanding on how the external actions that it manages contribute to various SDGs, unveiling innovative information relevant for addressing interlinkages on SDGs in the design and reporting of interventions. An overview of this matrix of SDG interactions is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Relationship between SDGs based on reporting of EU external interventions (2022, commitments)
The y-axis shows the main SDG and is shown with its linked significant SDGs in the x-axis. The numbers and the colour intensity indicate the number of times each connection occurs. 

Building on this general overview, the statistical and analytical annex of the EU Voluntary Review provides, for each SDG, visual information on the interlinkages between ODA for each SDG and the rest of the SDGs. This includes specifying the most common interactions, distinguishing when the SDG at stake is reported as main SDG (thereby indicating which other SDGs are more often associated as significant) and when this same SDG is reported instead as significant (indicating in that case which are the main SDGs most often associated in the projects reported).

SDG 1 – No poverty

EU SDG indicators

1.1 – Multidimensional poverty

People at risk of poverty or social exclusion

People at risk of income poverty after social transfers

Severe material and social deprivation

People living in households with very low work intensity

In work at-risk-of-poverty rate

1.2 – Basic needs

Housing cost overburden rate

Further data on the SDGs are available in the Eurostat database on the EU SDG indicators at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/database .

Synergies and trade-offs between SDGs