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India’s performance on SDG 2 and SDG 5 has been the poorest among 15 SDGs monitored, according to the national Sustainable Development Goals Index, 2023-24 released by NITI Aayog a few days ago.
Out of the 17 United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), SDGs 14 (life below water) and 17 (partnerships for the goals) have not been included in the criteria used to rank each state. Goal 14 is applicable only to the nine coastal states and therefore has not been considered in the calculation of India's overall composite score.
On SDG 5, which strives for gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls, the national average score has been alarmingly the lowest among all SDGs, at 49 (out of 100).
As many as 13 states and one Union territory, have scored below the national average. These include: Odisha, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Manipur, West Bengal, Tripura, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Chandigarh and Telangana.
With the lowest score of 39, Odisha performed the worst in terms of empowering women. One of the targets under this is to eliminate the wage gap between men and women for work of equal value. Under this, Odisha scored the least with female-to-male wage ratio of 0.56, followed by Jharkhand (0.6).
The country’s national average score on SDG 2, has been the second lowest, with 52 (out of 100) among the 15 SDGs monitored for all states / UTs.
Under this goal, which aims to end all forms of hunger and malnutrition by 2030, 10 states and one UT scored below the national average score of 52.
These included: Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Odisha, Maharashtra, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh.
With the lowest score of 24 under SDG 2, Bihar is the worst performer, followed by Jharkhand (28).
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh are amongst the largest states in India by population size. These were among the poor performers on the goal towards achieving gender equality and ending hunger, showed an analysis of SDG India Index 2020-21 in the State of India’s Environment, 2022 published by Down to Earth, Centre for Science and Environment.
Despite showing significant improvement, Bihar remained the poorest performer in 2023-24. The state managed to score 57 (out of 100) in comparison to the 2020-21 scores, where it had scored 32. Bihar lagged in five of the 15 SDGs monitored, which included – SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2, SDG 4, SDG 5 and SDG 13.
While, on each of these five goals, Bihar scored less than 50 (out of 100), the performance on SDG 2 has been the worst with an abysmal score of 24. This is the lowest among all states across SDGs.
Out of seven indicators under SDG 2, Bihar’s performance has been the national worst in at least three indictors. For example, 42.9 per cent of children (under 5 years) are stunted in the state against the national target of bringing this down to 23. 7 per cent.
While India’s global rank has improved to 109 (out of 166 countries), the country continues to face major challenges under SDG 2 and SDG 5 at the global level too, shows the Sustainable Development Report 2024 (SDG 2024) released by UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, June 2024.
While India dismissed the findings of Global Hunger Index, where the country reported the highest child wasting rate, India’s progress under the goal to end hunger has stagnated, according to the global SDG 2024 report.