Brazil is the First G20 Country to Track the Sustainable Development of All its Cities
Released July 8th, the Sustainable City Development Index shows a big regional imbalance. While São Paulo concentrates the 10 cities with the best indicators, Pará has 43 of the 100 worst ranked.
São Paulo, July 8th 2022 – The Instituto Cidades Sustentáveis (ICS) and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) released the Sustainable City Development Index - Brazil (IDSC-BR) on Friday, 8 July, in São Paulo. The index is a tool that tracks the engagement of all 5,570 Brazilian cities on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda. The IDSC-BR gathers data from all the Brazilian cities and measures progress on sustainable development for each city on over 100 indicators.
The survey used to collect data makes several crossings and comparisons, building an SDG Index which ranks cities and regions. The index allows for analysis of the cities’ level of accomplishment of the 2030 Agenda in general, as well as accomplishment on each indicator it establishes. Through the release of this 2022 report, Brazil has become the first country in the world to monitor and evaluate the level of sustainability progress of all its cities towards achieving the SDGs.
“It’s a strategic instrument to public administrators, since the analysis of results allows for orientation of municipal political action, as well as defining references and goals based on administration indicators, and facilitating the monitoring of the SDGs at the local level,” explained Jorge Abrahão, General Coordinator of ICS, in the launch event held in the auditorium of the Biennial of Ibirapuera Park during the 1st Sustainable Development of Cities Forum.
The 2030 Agenda and the SDGs emerged in 2015 as a major global pact. Signed by 193 UN member countries, including Brazil, the agreement represents a bold, common agenda to combat major economic, social, and environmental challenges. The SDGs include 17 goals and 169 indicators that require collaboration across governments, civil society and companies. “In this context, there is a big challenge to the cities. How can we implement and scale the SDGs to the local level? How can we translate the commitments defined by the UN into monitorable goals and indicators, capable of being measured and compared with the long-term, so that its evolution can be monitored and evaluated?” asked Abrahão, pointing out the IDSC-BR as a tool capable of supporting public management in this process.
Better performance in São Paulo cities
In a general analysis, the IDSC-BR confirms a social, economic, and environmental regional gap in Brazil. The index reveals disparities between the rates achieved by the cities in the Southeast and North regions of the country. While the 10 cities with the best performance are concentrated in the state of São Paulo, 43 of the 100 worst ranked are in the state of Pará.
The São Paulo state doesn’t have any cities at the lower levels of development. Only 5 cities in the state are below the national average, the worst being the municipality of Pirapora. The city of São Paulo has the highest drinking water supply indicators, with 99.3% of the population served, and selective collection indicators, with 79% of the population served. In addition, total health expenditure in the city of São Paulo is R$ 942.76 per capita. Yet, the income inequality in São Paulo is worse than in Macapá (AP), which registered the worst on the index among all capitals.
São Caetano do Sul showed the best SGD progress. In the city of ABC Paulista, 100% of the population are served with drinking water supply. The total expenditure of the municipal budget in health is R$2,324.03 per capita.
Cities in the North and Northeast are more fragile
The region known as Legal Amazonia, composed by Brazilian states that host the Amazon biome, presents the five worst capitals in the index. No city in the geographic composition appears with a high or very high score in the IDSC-BR, and only 16 have an average score. All of the 100 cities with lower numbers are in the North and Northeast regions.
According to the index, Macapá is the capital that ranks the lowest. Only 37.56% of the Macapá population receive a drinking water supply, while the municipal health budget is only R$ 329.00 per capita. The percentage of the population 15 years old and older who are illiterate is 6.17%, more than double the goal (3%).
Santana do Araguaia, in Pará, is the city that shows the worst indicators in the country. Only 8.8% of the young people up to 19 years old have completed high school and the age/grade adequacy rate in primary education is 49.6%. This means that almost half of the students are two or more years older than expected for the year in which they are enrolled.
On gender issues, the city has low rates: 42% of women between 15 and 24 years old don’t study or work; the women’s presence in the City Council is around 26% and the femicide rate is 17.5 per 100 thousand inhabitants. The goal for the indicator is 1 femicide per 100,000 inhabitants. The unemployment rate across the population is 19.45%; among the young people, the percentage is 27.2% - and 31% of the youth in the city between 15 and 24 years old don’t study or work.
Methodology
The IDSC-BR methodology was developed by the SDSN, an initiative under the auspices of the UN to mobilize global technical and scientific knowledge to promote practical solutions for sustainable development at the local, national and global scale. The IDSC-BR will be presented as a solution to the cities during the next High Level Political Forum (HLPF), a preparatory meeting for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that takes place from July 5 to 15, and intends to expand its methodology to other cities in Latin America.
The IDSC-BR score is assigned in the range between 0 and 100 and can be interpreted as the percentage of optimal performance. The difference between the score obtained and 100 is, therefore, the distance in percentage points that a city needs to overcome to reach optimal performance. The same set of indicators was applied to all cities to generate comparable scores and rankings. Differences between the position of cities in the final ranking can occur because of small distances in the IDSC score.
In addition to each city's score and ranking, the index also presents the SDG Panels, which provide a visual representation of the performance - the level of development - of the municipalities in the 17 SDGs. The color rating system (green, yellow, orange, and red) therefore indicates how far a city is from achieving the goal. The closer to red, the further away from achieving the SDG.
ABOUT INSTITUTO CIDADES SUSTENTÁVEIS
With two main initiatives - the Programa Cidades Sustentáveis and the Rede Nossa São Paulo -, the Instituto Cidades Sustentáveis aims to improve the people’s life quality based on the fight against inequalities, the promotion of human rights, social participation, transparency, and environmental protection. Since 2007 investing efforts to improve the people’s life quality, the organization aligns its actions to the global sustainable development agendas, such as the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), announced by the UN in 2015.
The Sustainable Development of Cities Forum is an ICS initiative, under the Programa Cidades Sustentáveis, and has the support of the Citinova Project, Ministry of Science and Technology, United Nations Environment Program, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the City of São Paulo. The Sustainable City Development Index is an ICS initiative, under the Programa Cidades Sustentáveis, and has the support of the Citinova Project, Ministry of Science and Technology, United Nations Environment Program and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
ABOUT SDSN
SDSN mobilizes global scientific and technological expertise to promote practical solutions for sustainable development, including the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement.
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