2018 Voluntary National Reviews: Showcasing the Critical Role of the Transport Sector to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

The High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development is the United Nation (UN)’s central platform for the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

A key reporting mechanism within the HLPF is the Voluntary National Review (VNR) process which aims to facilitate the sharing of experiences among countries, including successes, challenges and lessons learned, with a view to accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Although sustainable transport is not represented by a standalone SDG in the 2030 Agenda, it is mainstreamed in a direct or indirect manner into several SDGs, especially those related to poverty alleviation; food security; access to health services, clean water, education, and employment; gender equality; energy; infrastructure; cities and human settlements; energy and food consumption, and climate change.

Since the first HLPF in 2016, the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT) has been conducting analyses on the VNRs submitted each year. SLoCaT continued to track the references to transport in the 47 VNRs submitted to HLPF in 2018.

Final report on the 47 VNRs is now available and can be downloaded here.

Results of the analysis finds that despite a slight improvement from 2016 and 2017, gaps remain in reporting on transport and its contribution to sustainable development in VNRs submitted in 2018. In 2018, references to the transport sector were included in 94% of the VNRs submitted. Nevertheless, there remains a tendency in a number of VNRs to merely report on outputs (e.g. kilometers of highways built or kilometers of rail constructed) without demonstrating linkages to broader development goals.

Final report on the results of SLoCaT's anlaysis on the VNRS in 2018 is available here

Previous Reports on Transport and VNRs: 20162017

2018 Voluntary National Reviews