The global agenda on sustainable development is best expressed through the SDGs, what one can best describe as the ultimate measure of progress which is about prosperity for people and planet. The SDGs, a set of 17 “Global Goals”, 169 targets, and 230 indicators, are a standard for evaluating if progress is being made across the world to reduce poverty, improve quality of life, and realise aspirations of the masses of people towards development.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Indicator Baseline Report 2017

This report sheds light on what has been done and on what more needs to be accomplished in order to rid South Africa of extreme poverty.

Structure of the report

The report covers all 17 goals stated in the SDG documents. Each goal will be treated as a separate chapter in the report. Each chapter will be structured as follows:

1)         An introduction linking the sustainable development goal to the country’s National Development Plan (NDP), related policies, programmes and projects initiated by departments and institutions.

2)         Statement of the individual targets relating to the goal together with all indicators pertaining to specific targets.

3)         The definition of the indicator as well as the method of computing the indicator values.

4)         A baseline indicator value and where applicable, a chart/table indicating changes over time for the selected indicators are given. Baseline indicator values are based on data obtained during the base year (2016) or the year closest to 2016 for which data was available. In instances where the base year/period is not referenced on the charts/tables, the base year is 2016.

5)         Indication of the data source(s).

6)         Where possible, a comment section relating to the indicator is included.