Knowledge for Sustainable Development: Interactive repository of SDG interactions

This is an interactive repository of SDG interactions documented on behalf of the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), providing additional details on the data presented in Box 1-2: Interactions among Sustainable Development Goals as well as the illustrative Figure 2-1: Systemic interactions related to Goal 2 (zero hunger), which is inspired by Weitz et al. 2017.

The aim of this interactive repository is to reveal the current body of knowledge on interactions between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By assessing 65 global scientific assessments and UN flagship reports as well as 112 relevant scientific articles, interactions between any SDG targets were coded as trade-offs or co-benefits using the 7-point scale developed by the International Council for Science (ICSU, 2017). The interactive repository allows to explore the original sources behind such co-benefits and trade-offs as well as to identify remaining knowledge gaps.

We welcome any comments on the assessments as well as proposals to take this interactive repository further to support decision- and policy making on the 2030 Agenda.

The GSDR team at CDE wishes to thank the following colleagues for their contributions to the systematic literature review: Tania Charlton Christensen, Jakob Fritzbøge Christensen, Renate Fleiner, Sarah Hellebek, Johan Møller Nielsen, and Alemtsehay Teklay Subhatu.

The team also wishes to thank the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for its financial support.

How to navigate: Begin by clicking on the SDGs tab and then use your mouse pointer to hover over individual “donuts” where two SDGs interact (listed in top row and left-hand column). Clicking on individual donuts reveals target-level interactions, displayed on the Targets tab. Finally, click on the target-level interactions to explore additional information on the Interaction Details tab. To begin a new search, click on the SDGs tab once more and start over.

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For more information on the network analysis of this data and its implications for policymaking, please check out this article:

Pham‐Truffert, M., Metz, F., Fischer, M., Rueff, H., Messerli, P., 2020. Interactions among Sustainable Development Goals: Knowledge for identifying multipliers and virtuous cycles. Sustainable Development 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2073

To cite this post:

Pham-Truffert, M., Rueff, H., Messerli, P. 2019. Knowledge for Sustainable Development: Interactive repository of SDG interactions. CDEdatablog, Bern, Switzerland: CDE. https://datablog.cde.unibe.ch/index.php/2019/08/29/sdg-interactions/

Further references:

Breu, T., Bergöö, M., Ebneter, L., Pham-Truffert, M., Bieri, S., Messerli, P., Ott, C., Bader, C., 2020. Where to begin? Defining national strategies for implementing the 2030 Agenda: the case of Switzerland. Sustain Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00856-0

ICSU, 2017. A guide to SDG interactions: from science to implementation. International Council for Science, Paris. https://council.science/publications/a-guide-to-sdg-interactions-from-science-to-implementation/

Independent Group of Scientist, 2019. Global Sustainable Development Report 2019: The Future is Now – Science for Achieving Sustainable Development. United Nations, New York. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/gsdr2019

Nilsson, M., Chisholm, E., Griggs, D., Howden-Chapman, P., McCollum, D., Messerli, P., Neumann, B., Stevance, A.-S., Visbeck, M., Stafford-Smith, M., 2018. Mapping interactions between the sustainable development goals: lessons learned and ways forward. Sustainability Science 13, 1489–1503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0604-z

Pham‐Truffert, M., Metz, F., Fischer, M., Rueff, H., Messerli, P., 2020. Interactions among Sustainable Development Goals: Knowledge for identifying multipliers and virtuous cycles. Sustainable Development 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2073

Weitz, N., Carlsen, H., Nilsson, M., Skånberg, K., 2017. Towards systemic and contextual priority setting for implementing the 2030 Agenda. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0470-0

The logos of the SDGs and SDG targets were created by The Global Goals For Sustainable Development and are open source under the Creative Commons license.

Last update: October 2020