Determining the Distance Between Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean Regarding Their Fulfillment of the SDGs in 2017

• Activity Number: 238 - SPEED: Environment and Health, Governmental Policies and Population Surveys, Part 1
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 29, 2019 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Government Statistics Section
• Author(s): Andres Esteban Arguedas Leiva*
• Companies: University of Costa Rica
• Keywords: SDGs; multidimensional scaling; Latin America; 2030 Agenda

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), created by the United Nations (UN) as part of the 2030 Agenda, seek to make the world a better place for all its inhabitants through 17 specific goals. However, measuring and calculating the indicators related to these goals has been troublesome, for even the best statistical offices in the world have had problems obtaining data for some of these indicators. Therefore, each year the UN calculates an indicator regarding the fulfillment of the SDGs by each country. Based on this indicator and the capacity of a country’s statistical system, this article presents a comparison of the situations regarding the SDGs, between the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean for the year 2017, using the multidimensional scaling technique. The main results of this article are that the countries in the best overall situation are Uruguay and Argentina, which present the greatest progress on the SDGs while also having some of the best statistical capacities in the region, while, on the contrary, Guyana, Trinity and Tobago, and Belize present the worst progress regarding the SDGs and some deficiencies in their statistical systems.