Pandemics and economic wars cannot excuse a stagnation in progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The SDG index has stalled since 2020 and was one full point below the projections in 2022. Only 12% of targets are currently on track. Half are facing "moderate or severe deviations" due to "stagnation in the face of multiple crises" and 30% more have either stagnated or regressed. To ensure that SDGs are not reduced to mere rhetoric like the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and to accelerate progress towards the household related goals (SDGs 1 to 7, 10, 11, 16 and 17) and develop environmentally friendly sustainable livelihood opportunities (SDGs 8 and 9), the strategy has to have specific targets, rather than a thin spread of efforts. This book argues in favour of a shift to a common household database for each of the countries with real examples of the progress of developed, developing and underdeveloped economies towards achieving the SDG goals 1 to 7, 10, 11, 16 and 17.
Dr Aruna Sharma is an Indian Administrative Officer of the 1982 batch. She was in a 5-member High Level RBI committee on the Deepening of Digital Payments at the Reserve Bank of India. Her previous works include, "Dancing Towards the $5 Trillion Economy on Holistic Beat" (2021), "Resource Convergence Mantra Model" (2008) and "Impact of Recourse Convergence in Policy Making, Program Design and Execution" (2014). Her article on "The Samagra antipoverty programme in Madhya Pradesh: Integrating household data, overcoming siloproblems and leaving nobody behind," is published in Development Policy Review, May 2021 edition. She is a Fellow at the University of Bath in the UK and an alumnus of Harvard Kennedy School, USA. She specialises in tech and FinTech, the digital world, core sectors and environment issues usage for inclusive development. She regularly writes for the Financial Express, the Economic Times and electronic media.
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