SDG Interlinkages and Data Visualisation Web Tool

For the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to realise the potential to transform the way that countries and cities develop for the foreseeable future, they require effective indicators and tools for measuring, analysing and communicating the progress over time at both international and national levels. The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) has been working on a project entitled "Sustainable Development Goals, Targets and Indicators”, which focuses on indicators and the analysis of the interlinkages between SDGs targets.
SDGs and targets interact with each other in an indivisible way forming a complicated network of interlinkages from a systemic perspective. Understanding the interlinkages between SDG targets is an essential prerequisite for practising policy integration and joint implementation which help minimise conflicts, avoid trade-offs and seek synergies for making achievements inclusively across all 17 SDG areas. Existing knowledge on SDG interlinkages, however, is limited due mainly to the relatively short period after the adoption of the SDGs in 2015 and multiple disciplines covered by 17 broad areas.
To address the policy needs and fill in the knowledge gaps, the Strategic and Quantitative Analysis Centre of IGES developed the SDG Interlinkages and Data Visualisation Web Tool (version 1.0). The web tool, available online for free for anybody with access to the internet, allows the users to visualise the interlinkages between SDG targets, explore and download indicator-level data for nine Asian countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Viet Nam), and compare performance over time. The web tool, which will be updated regularly and expanded progressively, is expected to support policy integration for SDG planning and implementation by providing a practical tool on the analysis of the interlinkages between SDG targets. Necessary documentation for the whole project, including the methodologies, reference materials and publications is available from the website that hosts the SDG Interlinkages and Data Visualisation Web Tool.