Launch of Sustainable Development Report for Paraguay 2021

On Monday Nov 8, the SDSN launched the very first Sustainable Development Report for Paraguay. The project came out of a year-long collaboration between SDSN and Paraguay’s Finance Ministry with support from UNDP Paraguay.

The report presents an international SDG assessment that compares Paraguay’s performance to its regional peers in Latin America, but also presents a subnational SDG Index and Dashboards for the country’s 17 departments and capital district.

The virtual launch event, hosted by Paraguay’s finance ministry, featured presentations from Jeffery Sachs (SDSN), Finance Minister Oscar Llamosas, Professor Gordon McCord (SDSN) & Silvia Morimoto (UNDP). Finance Minister Llamosas mentioned that the data from the report revealed considerable progress in the elimination of material deprivation and access to public services, but that challenges remain in areas such as health, inequalities, land-use & land-use change, and in peace, justice and strong institutions. Furthermore, he discussed the importance of the subnational analysis at the departmental level, stressing that understanding the disparities in SDG progress across territories within the country is crucial for effective and precise policymaking.

The report and the online data visualization are publicly available online at sdgindex.org.

Here are five key findings from the report:

1. Results reveal that extreme poverty and related measures are no longer major challenges for the country. Indicators of extreme deprivation show promising trends. Access to potable water and electricity is universal, while infant and neonatal mortality rates are low and decreasing.

2. However, there are several SDGs that remain challenges for Paraguay and the region at large: SDG 3 (Good health and well-being), SDG 4 (Quality education), SDG 5 (Gender equality), SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth), SDG 9 (Industry, innovation, and infrastructure), SDG 10 (Reducing inequalities), SDG 16 (Peace, justice and strong institutions). SDG 3 represents a particular challenge in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The outbreak of the pandemic has posed a major challenge to Paraguay’s health system. Strengthening its healthcare provision will be essential in the short and long term.

3. Land use change is a critical challenge. Paraguay has a wealth of biodiversity and a preponderance of primary forests while at the same time having a large and growing agricultural sector. Today's agricultural practices are not sustainable. Soybean production and cattle ranching generate high nitrogen emissions (harmful to humans and ecosystems) and massive destruction of its forests, which is harmful to the country’s rich terrestrial biodiversity.

4. Disparities between urban and rural areas are large and persistent. The subnational SDG index reveals important territorial differences in terms of SDG performance. Asunción and Central lead the assessment by a wide margin, while the rural departments of Chaco and the Northeast are far from the targets. The 2030 agenda is based on the principle of "leaving no one behind," which includes the equal provision of services to both rural and urban populations.

5. With nationally produced databases, it is possible to increase the production of key indicators for SDG monitoring. The availability of data essential to monitoring the SDGs tends to be scarcer at the subnational level. However, it is often possible to construct additional indicators from existing national databases. This report includes an annex describing how additional indicators can be calculated using such databases. Indeed, despite the additional indicators, important data gaps persist for monitoring the SDGs at the subnational level in the country.