IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v33y2025is1p561-576.html

Mapping the Implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Author

Listed:
  • Walter Leal Filho
  • Tony Wall
  • Amanda Lange Salvia
  • Pinar Ozuyar
  • Luciana Londero Brandli
  • Anabela Marisa Azul
  • Ayyoob Sharifi

Abstract

The implementation of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a process, which has been mobilizing the international community—and resources—in an unprecedented way. However, even though this worldwide movement is expected to mobilize stakeholders from across all society, it remains unclear how this process is yielding the expected results. In an attempt to address this knowledge gap, this study examines the literature on the implementation of the SDGs and performs a mapping of the extent to which they are being implemented. This study combines a bibliometric analysis using the major scientific databases, with a critical appraisal of the experiences and progresses documented in the “Encyclopedia of the UN SDGs”. The results show that whereas significant progress has been seen in implementing some SDGs, other goals remain under‐prioritized or under‐resourced. Also, some goals such as SDG13 (Climate action), SDG 3 (Health and Well Being), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) are more prominently present in the literature, when compared with the others. Based on the findings, the paper outlines some of the research needs, which should be met, so as to address the implementation problems the mapping has identified.

Suggested Citation

  • Walter Leal Filho & Tony Wall & Amanda Lange Salvia & Pinar Ozuyar & Luciana Londero Brandli & Anabela Marisa Azul & Ayyoob Sharifi, 2025. "Mapping the Implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(S1), pages 561-576, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:s1:p:561-576
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.70012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.70012
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.70012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Calvo, Thomas & Razafindrakoto, Mireille & Roubaud, François, 2019. "Fear of the state in governance surveys? Empirical evidence from African countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Saleem H. Ali & Damien Giurco & Nicholas Arndt & Edmund Nickless & Graham Brown & Alecos Demetriades & Ray Durrheim & Maria Amélia Enriquez & Judith Kinnaird & Anna Littleboy & Lawrence D. Meinert & R, 2017. "Mineral supply for sustainable development requires resource governance," Nature, Nature, vol. 543(7645), pages 367-372, March.
    3. Li, Nan & Ma, Ding & Chen, Wenying, 2017. "Quantifying the impacts of decarbonisation in China’s cement sector: A perspective from an integrated assessment approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(P2), pages 1840-1848.
    4. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Guido Schmidt-Traub & Mariana Mazzucato & Dirk Messner & Nebojsa Nakicenovic & Johan Rockström, 2019. "Six Transformations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(9), pages 805-814, September.
    5. Weber, Heloise & Weber, Martin, 2020. "When means of implementation meet Ecological Modernization Theory: A critical frame for thinking about the Sustainable Development Goals initiative," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    6. Giles-Corti, Billie & Lowe, Melanie & Arundel, Jonathan, 2020. "Achieving the SDGs: Evaluating indicators to be used to benchmark and monitor progress towards creating healthy and sustainable cities," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(6), pages 581-590.
    7. Cumming, Tracey L. & Shackleton, Ross T. & Förster, Johannes & Dini, John & Khan, Ahmed & Gumula, Mpho & Kubiszewski, Ida, 2017. "Achieving the national development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through investment in ecological infrastructure: A case study of South Africa," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 27(PB), pages 253-260.
    8. Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor & Marcia Moreno-Báez & Gabriel Reygondeau & William W. L. Cheung & Katherine M. Crosman & Pedro C. González-Espinosa & Vicky W. Y. Lam & Muhammed A. Oyinlola & Gerald G. , 2021. "Enabling conditions for an equitable and sustainable blue economy," Nature, Nature, vol. 591(7850), pages 396-401, March.
    9. Ziqi Meng & Jinwei Dong & Erle C. Ellis & Graciela Metternicht & Yuanwei Qin & Xiao-Peng Song & Sara Löfqvist & Rachael D. Garrett & Xiaopeng Jia & Xiangming Xiao, 2023. "Post-2020 biodiversity framework challenged by cropland expansion in protected areas," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 6(7), pages 758-768, July.
    10. Alexandre Henry, 2019. "Transmission channels of the resource curse in Africa : A time perspective," Post-Print hal-03488691, HAL.
    11. Henry, Alexandre, 2019. "Transmission channels of the resource curse in Africa: A time perspective," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 13-20.
    12. Sajjad Ali & Talib Hussain & Guoliang Zhang & Mohammad Nurunnabi & Benqian Li, 2018. "The Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in “BRICS” Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-14, July.
    13. Hao Zhao & Jinfeng Chang & Petr Havlík & Michiel Dijk & Hugo Valin & Charlotte Janssens & Lin Ma & Zhaohai Bai & Mario Herrero & Pete Smith & Michael Obersteiner, 2021. "China’s future food demand and its implications for trade and environment," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 4(12), pages 1042-1051, December.
    14. Saleem H. Ali & Damien Giurco & Nicholas Arndt & Edmund Nickless & Graham Brown & Alecos Demetriades & Ray Durrheim & Maria Amélia Enriquez & Judith Kinnaird & Anna Littleboy & Lawrence D. Meinert & R, 2017. "Correction: Corrigendum: Mineral supply for sustainable development requires resource governance," Nature, Nature, vol. 547(7662), pages 246-246, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giulia Mugellini & Rédina Berkachy & Jean‐Patrick Villeneuve, 2026. "Evaluating the Quality of Corruption Surveys for Comparative Research and Sustainable Development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(S1), pages 1144-1172, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Phoebe Koundouri & Anthony Cox & Arunima Malik & Ben Groom & Brian O'Callaghan & Cameron Hepburn & Catherine Kilelu & Christine Lins & Dale Squires & E. Somanathan & Heba Handoussa & Ian Bateman & Ism, 2023. "The Recovery from the Covid-19 Pandemic as an Opportunity for a Sustainable and Resilient World," DEOS Working Papers 2311, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    2. Endl, Andreas & Tost, Michael & Hitch, Michael & Moser, Peter & Feiel, Susanne, 2021. "Europe's mining innovation trends and their contribution to the sustainable development goals: Blind spots and strong points," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Jean Pierre Namahoro & Wu Qiaosheng & Deyun Wang, 2025. "Mineral rents, renewable energy, and real growth nexus: evidence from top-rich countries in minerals across East-Central African regions," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 38(2), pages 359-375, June.
    4. Guzmán, Juan Ignacio & Karpunina, Alina & Araya, Constanza & Faúndez, Patricio & Bocchetto, Marcela & Camacho, Rodolfo & Desormeaux, Daniela & Galaz, Juanita & Garcés, Ingrid & Kracht, Willy & Lagos, , 2023. "Chile: On the road to global sustainable mining," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Islam, Md. Monirul, 2025. "US-China bi-lateral mineral trade and energy transition in the landscape of global value chain pressures, geo-economic fragmentation and US-China geopolitical risks," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 399(C).
    6. Tomer Fishman & Rupert J. Myers & Orlando Rios & T.E. Graedel, 2018. "Implications of Emerging Vehicle Technologies on Rare Earth Supply and Demand in the United States," Resources, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-15, January.
    7. Pedro José Martínez Córdoba & Ventura Castillo Ramos & Elisabeth Zafra Gómez & Jose Luis Zafra Gómez, 2025. "Efficiency of Public Spending on Environmental Protection: The Role of Renewable Energy, Governance and Fossil Fuel Subsidies," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(S1), pages 545-560, November.
    8. Njangang, Henri & Asongu, Simplice A. & Tadadjeu, Sosson & Nounamo, Yann & Kamguia, Brice, 2022. "Governance in mitigating the effect of oil wealth on wealth inequality: A cross-country analysis of policy thresholds," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Dou Shiquan & Xu Deyi, 2023. "The security of critical mineral supply chains," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 36(3), pages 401-412, September.
    10. Ramez Abubakr Badeeb & Jeremy Clark & Abey P. Philip, 2021. "The Nonlinear Effects of Oil Rent Dependence on Malaysian Manufacturing: Implications from Structural Change using a Markov-Regime Switching Model," Working Papers in Economics 21/11, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    11. Roozbeh Balounejad Nouri, 2024. "Investigating causality between natural resource rents, openness, and economic growth: A quantile approach," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2), pages 468-484, May.
    12. Yao, Xilong & Wang, Hualing & Shao, Shuai & Li, Xiaoyu & Guo, Zhi, 2022. "“Booster” or “obstacle”: Can coal capacity cut policies moderate the resource curse effect? Evidence from Shanxi (China)," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    13. Margarita N. Ignatyeva & Vera V. Yurak & Alexey V. Dushin & Irina G. Polyanskaya, 2021. "Assessing challenges and threats for balanced subsoil use," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(12), pages 17904-17922, December.
    14. Tom Henfrey & Giuseppe Feola & Gil Penha‐Lopes & Filka Sekulova & Ana Margarida Esteves, 2023. "Rethinking the sustainable development goals: Learning with and from community‐led initiatives," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 211-222, February.
    15. Michael Asiedu & Ebenezer Nana Yeboah & David Owusu Boakye, 2021. "Natural Resources and the Economic Growth of West Africa Economies," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 8(2), pages 20-32, March.
    16. Steven B. Young & Shannon Fernandes & Michael O. Wood, 2019. "Jumping the Chain: How Downstream Manufacturers Engage with Deep Suppliers of Conflict Minerals," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24, January.
    17. Femke J. M. M. Nijsse & Jean-Francois Mercure & Nadia Ameli & Francesca Larosa & Sumit Kothari & Jamie Rickman & Pim Vercoulen & Hector Pollitt, 2023. "The momentum of the solar energy transition," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    18. Pommeret, Aude & Ricci, Francesco & Schubert, Katheline, 2022. "Critical raw materials for the energy transition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    19. Liu, Wenjuan & Agusdinata, Datu B. & Eakin, Hallie & Romero, Hugo, 2022. "Sustainable minerals extraction for electric vehicles: A pilot study of consumers’ perceptions of impacts," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    20. Saleem H. Ali, 2018. "Extracting at the borders: Negotiating political and ecological geographies of movement in mineral frontiers," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 481-490, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:s1:p:561-576. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.