County close to UN 2030 agenda targets

Most of the indexes in Deqing, a county in Huzhou city in East China's Zhejiang province, are close to the UN's goals on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, according to a progress report unveiled at the geospatial congress on Tuesday.

The report, comprising comprehensive measurements and statistical and geospatial information, is the first quantitative evaluation and comprehensive analysis of the sustainable development goals - or SDGs - at the county level.

The report also provides an availability model and method on the measuring and monitoring of SDGs for other parts of China, while providing important gauges for Deqing's future social and economic development.

On Sept 25, 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with 17 SDGs and 169 targets for all nations, aiming to end poverty and promote prosperity and people's well-being while protecting the environment by that year. The agenda represents a new coherent way of embracing economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection as an "invisible whole".

China has always put sustainable development as one of its top priorities and President Xi Jinping signed the 2030 Agenda while attending the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit.

Premier Li Keqiang hosted a symposium on Sustainable Development Goals: Working Together to Transform Our World - China Proposition, at the UN Headquarters in New York in September 2016, and announced the release of China's National Plan on Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Since then, specific targets and roadmaps for implementing the 17 SDGs and 169 targets in China were identified by combining the 2030 agenda with the nation's medium and long-term development plan and integrating the implementation of the international agenda and the domestic strategic process.

In order to track Deqing's progress toward the SDGs, a team of 30 researchers, led by the National Geomatics Center for China, together with several universities and high-tech enterprises, measured 102 SDG indicators over the 938-sq-km county in line with the UN global SDGs indicator framework.

According to the report, Deqing had "preferably implemented coordinated and sustainable development in its economy, environment and society."

"This is the first exploratory research project to carry out SDGs evaluations based on statistical and geospatial information," said Liu Zhenmin, UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs.

(China Daily 11/22/2018 page7)