The ESPON EGTC, a European Grouping on Territorial Cooperation, has commissioned Technopolis Group, together with WAAT Ltd and the Social Progress Imperative (SPI) to develop and implement a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) benchmarking tool in the form of a web application that offers support to governments at all levels to achieving the SDGs.
This tool is aimed at policy-makers, in particular regional policy-makers, but also national policy-makers that want to gain better insight into the regional disparities and developments related to the SDGs.
The SDGs benchmarking tool is a simple, intuitive and user-friendly web application that helps policy makers turn a large volume of indicators in insights contributing to providing answers to questions such as:
- Is my region making progress towards achieving the SDG targets?
- Is my region lagging behind or leading in achieving SDGs compared to other similar regions?
- From which regions in Europe can I draw inspiration to progress towards the SDGs?
- Which regions would benefit from targeted support to help step up action to improve their progress and thus contribute substantially to the national progress on the SDGs?
The web tool allows the user to select a range of different indicators related to the 17 sustainable development goals. Data at NUTS 2 level are available for comparing and benchmarking one’s regions. The user can display the distance to targets by indicator as well as track progress for each indicator along multiple periods in time. This can be done for all regions, but also with a focus on regions similar to their own with regards to various aspects. Finally, the user can become inspired by examples found in the library which showcase regional initiatives and related studies.
More information about the methodological approach and the tool can be found here.
