Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among the South Asian Countries: Progress and Challenges

Abstract

This article analyses sustainable development goals based on selected indicators to capture the progress of SDGs among the South Asian countries. The selected indicators are used to explore countries achievements of SDGs since its adoption in 2015 and challenges of achieving specific SDG. This study adopts various methods including trend analysis, ranking and comparative analysis to analyse the progress of SDGs among the countries. The findings reveal that although SDG1 is progressing, still one third of the world poor population lives in south Asia where India (37.2%) was found highest poverty headcount based on $3.20/day followed by Nepal (33.4%) and Bangladesh (33.2%). The findings also portray that majority south Asian countries spend less than 4% of their GDP on education and health which hindrances the progress of SDG indicators. Moreover, many countries are still far reaching from the environmental sustainability indicators such as CO₂ emission per capita, air pollution and forest coverage. Overall, though the countries have achieved some positive progress in particular SDG but majority SDGs including 1, 5, 8, 11, 14-17 remain challenges for achieving the target. Therefore, this study suggests to promote policies and initiatives targeting specific SDG by the countries for achieving the SDGs by 2030.