The Public Policy Secretariat of the Republic of Serbia has published its latest report „Serbia and the 2030 Agenda – Mapping the National Strategic Framework in Relation to the Sustainable Development Goals“ for 2023. Produced for the fifth consecutive year, this report provides a comprehensive overview of the current national planning documents in relation to each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, grouped according to clusters and negotiation chapters within the European integration process. The report includes a review and analysis of more than 100 planning documents by December 2023.
The report’s findings indicate that most of the valid planning documents are relevant to achieving the SDGs. „The latest mapping of the planning framework in relation to the 2030 Agenda shows that the coverage of the sustainable development goals and targets by the planning framework of the Republic of Serbia is 82.7%, which is an increase of 4.7% compared to the previous year. According to the global Sustainable Development Report 2023, Serbia ranks 36th out of 166 countries, with a sustainable development index of 77.3, which represents progress compared to 2022, when that index was 75.9,“ said Bojana Tošić, Director of the Public Policy Secretariat.
Serbia will contribute to the achievement of the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda through a series of measures and activities, thereby reaffirming its sustained commitment to improving the living conditions of all its citizens in all three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, environmental protection and social inclusion. This political determination of Serbia is based on analyzes of the planning framework related to the achievement of 17 SDGs and relevant data, and was also confirmed at the UN Summit on Sustainable Development Goals held in September last year in New York, where transformative and accelerated actions to meet the goals set until 2030 were presented.
„In the previous period, the greatest progress in terms of the level of SDG coverage was achieved in planning documents in the areas of health, economic growth and decent work, as well as in the area of adaptation to climate change. The coverage of SDGs in the areas of food availability, reduction of inequality and responsible consumption and production are somewhat less covered by the existing planning framework. In the coming period, the determination of sectoral goals through public policy documents in the areas of social protection, traffic development, as well as cultural development would contribute to increasing the coverage of SDGs,“ says Darinka Radojević, Head of the Department for Public Policy Planning Support. Furthermore, she adds, the Public Policy Secretariat is working to enhance the visibility of the contribution of public policies in the implementation of SDGs in the Republic of Serbia through the improvement of the mapping methodology and by setting the national framework of SDG indicators in cooperation with all relevant actors.
The preparation of the report „Serbia and the 2030 Agenda – Mapping the National Strategic Framework in Relation to the Sustainable Development Goals“ has been supported by the Public Finance Reform – 2030 Agenda project which is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and financed by the governments of Germany and Switzerland.
The Report is available in Serbian language: Srbija-i-Agenda-2030.-februar-2024.-lat.pdf (rsjp.gov.rs)