A recent analysis published in The Lancet has concluded that India is not on-target to achieve 19 of the 33 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators. The critical off-target indicators include access to basic services, wasting and overweight children, anaemia, child marriage, partner violence, tobacco use, and modern contraceptive use.
For these indicators, more than 75% of the 707 districts analysed were off-target. And these off-target districts are concentrated in the States of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Odisha.
The SDGs were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 with a vision to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. India is one of the signatory countries that has committed to achieving these goals by 2030. In this analysis, 33 SDG indicators were used to assess nine of the 17 official SDGs.
Chart 1 shows the distribution of districts in India based on their SDG indicator status. The bars are colour-coded based on the district status: Achieved-I, Achieved-II, On-Target and Off-Target.
Chart 1
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Achieved-I: Districts that have already met the SDG target by 2021 and have either observed an improvement between 2016 and 2021 or a worsening small enough in magnitude between 2016 and 2021 such that they will still maintain their achieved status by 2030.
Achieved-II: Districts that have already met the SDG target by 2021 but have observed a worsening magnitude of change between 2016 and 2021. If this trend continues, the status of these districts as achieved will be undone by 2030.
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On-Target: Districts that have not met the SDG target by 2021 and have observed a magnitude of improvement between 2016 and 2021 sufficient to meet the target by 2030.
Off-Target: Districts that have not met the SDG target by 2021 and either observed worsening between 2016 and 2021 or observed an insufficient magnitude of improvement between 2016 and 2021. If these districts continue with either of these trends, they will not meet their targets by 2030.
The five indicators with the highest number of districts that have met the target (achieved-I) are adolescent pregnancy (684 districts), tobacco use in women (478), multidimensional poverty (370), teenage sexual violence (340), and electricity access (306).
The five indicators with the most districts on-target are bank accounts (624 districts), improved sanitation (553), full vaccination (538), Internet use (502), and skilled birth attendants (438).
Indicators with the largest number of off-target districts include anaemia in women (644 districts), anaemia in non-pregnant women (643), access to basic services (613), anaemia in pregnant women (606), and health insurance for women (591).
For districts that are off-target on a given indicator, the time it will take to meet the SDG target post-2030 varies substantially. Chart 2 shows the number of off-target districts where the SDG indicators will be met by 2035 or before, 2036 to 2040, 2041 or after, or never meeting.
Chart 2
The indicators with the largest number of districts that will meet their targets after 2040 are access to basic services (437), health insurance for women (334), own mobile phone for women (299), health insurance for men (296), and clean fuel for cooking (276).
Indicators with most districts that will never meet its targets at all are anaemia among women (430), anaemia in non-pregnant women (430), anaemia in pregnant women (396), wasting and overweight children (330), and partner’s sexual violence (291).
Source: “Sustainable Development Goal Indicators in 707 districts of India: A quantitative mid-line assessment using the National Family Health Surveys, 2016 and 2021″, a recent analysis published in The Lancet
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