The state of Paraná, one of Brazil’s most populated and developed states, has been aligning its public policies with sustainable development since the 1990s. More recently, Paraná has used the SDGs as a tool and framework to reduce longstanding challenges related to health, education and...

A growing number of investors and corporates aim at coupling financial returns in developing countries with positive social, economic and environmental impacts. However, the way they measure those impacts can be at odds with actual managing practices, and important aspects such as transparency,...

The Western Balkans region has come a long way over the last two decades in achieving economic and social progress. With a population of 17.6 million, the region today boasts a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of close to EUR 100 billion, an average GDP per capita of about EUR 5 400 and a...

Gender equality and environmental goals are mutually reinforcing, with slow progress on environmental actions affecting the achievement of gender equality, and vice versa. Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires targeted and coherent actions. However, complementarities...

Pursuing sustainable development requires a whole-of-society effort, where the public sector engages with citizens, the private sector and civil society organisations. With this goal in mind, in 2014, the Nuevo León (Mexico) government created the Nuevo León’s Council for Strategic Planning...

Delivering the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement will require all sources of finance — public and private — to be scaled up and aligned with sustainable development. Blended finance can play an essential role in unlocking and channelling commercial finance towards sustainable development...

The multidimensional and intergenerational nature of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls for integrated policies. Progress made in a particular social, economic or environmental area or individual goal may generate synergies and...

Although the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not integrated explicitly into the main urban development plans of the city of Moscow, the local government has started using them as a checklist to assess the contribution of its sectoral programmes to sustainable development, as well as...

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a large and dynamic regional economic community (REC) with the second highest level of regional integration among all African RECs. It has also been at the forefront of regional investment policymaking in Africa, with the Finance and...

The scale of Uzbekistan’s green transition requires a marked increase in private financing to fill the existing spending gap. The outsized role of the state in Uzbekistan’s economy and its underdeveloped domestic capital market act as significant constraints and call for a diversification of...