The global agenda on sustainable development is best expressed through the SDGs, which can be described as the ultimate measure of progress regarding prosperity for people and planet. The SDGs, a set of 17 “Global Goals”, 169 targets, and 248 indicators, are a standard for evaluating if progress is being made across the world to reduce poverty, improve quality of life, and realise people’s aspirations towards development. It is important to note that only 242 of the SDG indicators are applicable to South Africa.

The 2023 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Country Report for South Africa is the third SDG report for the country and comes at the mid-point of the 2030 Agenda. This report builds from the SDG Indicator Baseline Report released in 2017, which provided the starting point for the country to measure its progress in achieving the global goals, as well as the SDG Country Report released in 2019, that provided the initial progress made by South Africa.

The 2023 Country Report presents an overall picture of the country’s progress towards achieving these goals and illustrates the strides made since 2019. It further provides an overview of key socio-economic and environmental issues that are currently hindering development, as well as evidence that may assist decision-makers to accelerate action and overcome these hindrances to achieving sustainable development in South Africa.

Amidst extraordinary and unprecedented challenges, the country has made progress in improving data availability for SDG monitoring. In 2019, South Africa could report on 64% (128 of 198) of the SDG indicators; at the time of the publication of the 2023 report, the country was able to achieve 72.3% coverage (175 of 242). Nevertheless, certain gaps with respect to geographic coverage, timeliness, and disaggregation of data remain.

It is important to note that while South Africa has progressed in terms of data coverage for SDGs, its’ ability to provide current data for issues relating to poverty, food security, health and inequality were hampered by various challenges. Similarly, the lack of data for goals across the economic, environment and governance sectors remains a concern.