KIGALI, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda has been ranked among top 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are on progress towards attaining the UN-backed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, according to SDG Index and Dashboards report released here on Tuesday.
The second edition of the SDGs and Dashboards report on Africa, released by the Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa (SDGC/A) and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) provides a report card for tracking SDG progress and ensuring accountability.
The survey that assesses the capacity of 157 economies across the globe ranks Rwanda top in East Africa, 7th in sub-Saharan Africa and 117th at the global level.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Gabon ranks first with 85th globally, followed by Mauritius, 103rd in the World and South Africa on third position and 108th globally.
According to the index, Sweden comes first in the world followed by Denmark and Finland ranks third.
Speaking at the launch, Belay Begashaw, director General of SDGC/A, said sub-Saharan African economies still face challenges across almost all SDGs, with poverty, hunger and health as major concerns.
"Developing countries are struggling to meet basic social services and infrastructure access to their populations. There is hope the SDI will help African economies identify gaps that must be closed in order to achieve SDGS by 2030," he said.
The SDGs are composed of 17 goals and 169 targets to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change by 2030. They also aim to build on the work of the historic Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight anti-poverty targets to be reached by the end of 2015.
The report stresses that many high-income countries perform well in areas such as economic development but still fall short of achieving a good all-round SDG performance.
The countries closest to fulfilling the SDGs are not the biggest economies but small developed countries. Poor and developing countries score lowest on the SDG Index as they have little resources at their disposal, according to the index.
SDGC/A is an autonomous non-profit international organization, the policies of which are formulated and carried out by a high level board of directors representing African and global leaders in government, business, academia and civil society. Enditem
