Preservation of the planet, economic progress and social justice: we asked the citizens whether it is enough to make progress in only one of these areas, and whether it is right to focus on economic growth while expecting the other two segments to be regulated spontaneously.
A video about that, together with data showing how far Serbia has come in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, are published on the website MONS – Monitoring of Social Situation in Serbia.
Serbia has been a signatory to the 2030 Agenda since 2016, but today its participation in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is mostly on a declarative basis. Neither the nationally specific goals nor the precise targets within the goals have been defined; no umbrella strategy has been adopted for sustainable development to clearly define the national priorities and the roadmap to sustainable development; and the Inter-Secretariat Working Group that was supposed to coordinate the implementation of the Agenda was disbanded in 2020.
The only state institution in Serbia that actively monitors the progress in achieving the Goals of Sustainable Development is the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, which publishes annual reports based on data. The number of monitored indicators is growing from year to year. However, they are not tailored to Serbia’s specific development needs, but are taken over in their original form. Setting of specific sectoral goals, setting of targets and mapping of policies, is not a job for the statistics but for the competent bodies within the RS Government.
