National Strategy / Action Plan

There is no National Strategy / Action Plan in United Kingdom

national ESC(s)

There is no national ESC in United Kingdom

SD council or equivalent

There is no SD council or equivalent in United Kingdom

Performance

There is no Performance in United Kingdom

Summary

  • The Department for International Development (DFID) is in charge of policy oversight for SDGs. All Single Departmental Plans contain specific references to activities that will support delivery of the Goals
  • In 2019 the UK has submitted its first Voluntary National Review of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals
  • There is no nESC or equivalent body and organised civil society is primarily engaged through ad hoc groups and consultations, but "UK stakeholders for SD" is a highly active network of 60 civil society organisations.

Description of the initiative

    Actors

    Supporting government bodies
    National Economic and Social Council
    Sustainable Development Council
    SD council text

    UK has no Sustainable Development council

    nESC text

    UK has no nESC

    Institutional framework

    Lead and supporting government bodies

    The Department for International Development (DFID) has overall policy oversight for SDGs. It is supported in this task by the Cabinet Office, which works with UK government departments to ensure that the domestic delivery of the SDGs is captured in the UK government’s Single Departmental Plan process.

    Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals

    The report above describes qualitatively how policies and measures will contribute to reaching individual SDGs.  Following the UN’s guidelines on implementing the SDGs through existing government frameworks, the primary means of implementation is embedding the SDGs into Single Departmental Plans (SDP). Departments will report progress towards the Goals through their Annual Reports and Accounts.

    - In January 2019, the UK's Environmental Audit Committee published a report on the implementation of the SDGs. The report provided recommendations on how to further embed the SDGs within government planning, as well as how to improve track progress on the Goals.

    Role of civil society

    Involvement in implementation of Sustainable Development Goals

    There is no formal consultation mechanism in the UK through which organised civil society is engaged in planning, implementing and monitoring SDGs.

    The House of Commons received 36 pieces of written evidence from various stakeholders and held four events with stakeholders when drafting its January 2019 report on the UK's implementation of the SDGs.

    The UK government has called for CSOs contributions for the upcoming Voluntary National Review and has organised a range of stakeholder events. An online portal was also created which enabled organisations to feed in their views to the VNR. This assisted those unable to attend to the events in person.

    Civil society platform for 2030

    Many Civil Society Organisations are active and committed in the delivery of the SDG. Most of them are part of UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development. It is a network of 92 university institutes, professional associations and environmental NGOs. Its mission is to "inspire, influence and inform people, communities and organisations to transform the UK into a truly sustainable society". UKSSD attempts to influence, inspire and inform. To date its successes include:

    • Publication of Measuring up, a report on UK implementation of the SDG. It was made with the contribution of more that 100 stakeholders.
    • Open Letter to the PM from over 80 businesses to demonstrate commitment to SDGs, published in The Times. The letter received widespread media attention and a formal response from Theresa May.

    Monitoring & Evaluation

    Performance

    UN SDSN SDG Index Country Profile

    United Kingdom ranks 13rd in the SDG global ranking of 2019.

    Indicators

    Office of National Statistics is responsible for reporting on progress annually.

    The ONS was reporting UK data for 74% of the 244 global UN indicators (180 indicators). This figure was 39% in November 2017.

    ONS has developed a digital reporting platform for SDGs

    Voluntary National Report

    Voluntary National Review was submitted to the UN on June 2019. It has been coordinated by the DFID, involving a wide range of UK government departments, the devolved administrations and civil Society