Sustainable Development Goal 9 (Goal 9 or SDG 9) is about "industry, innovation and infrastructure" and is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. SDG 9 aims to build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. SDG 9 has eight targets, and progress is measured by twelve indicators. The first five targets are ''outcome targets'': develop sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructures; promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization; increase access to

financial services Financial services are service (economics), economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of tertiary sector of the economy, service sector activities, especially as concerns finan ...

and markets; upgrade all industries and infrastructures for

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

; enhance research and upgrade industrial technologies. The remaining three targets are ''means of implementation'' ''targets Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License'': Facilitate sustainable infrastructure development for developing countries; support domestic technology development and industrial diversification; universal access to

information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

. In 2019, it was reported that "the intensity of global

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

emissions has declined by nearly one quarter since 2000, showing a general decoupling of carbon dioxide emissions from GDP growth". Millions of people are still unable to access the internet due to cost, coverage, and other reasons. It is estimated that just 54% of the world's population are currently (in 2020) internet users.

Background

The aim of attaining inclusive and sustainable industrialization is to "unleash dynamic and competitive economic forces that generate employment and income". This goal includes striving for resilience (engineering and construction) and urban resilience. SDG 9 recognizes that humanity's ability to connect and communicate effectively, move people and things efficiently, and develop new skills, industries and technology, is crucial in overcoming the many interlinked economic, social and environmental challenges in the 21st century. In order to have a successful community, a functioning and strong infrastructure has to be in place as its basic requirement. SDG 9 is all about promoting innovative and

sustainable technologies Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecology, ecological sustain ...

and ensuring equal and universal access to information and financial markets. The

technological Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as ute ...

development in infrastructure is what gives rise to a sustainable society. This is expected to create prosperity and jobs, and build stable and prosperous societies across the globe. The key emphasis is on developing reliable and sustainable infrastructural solutions that support

economic development In economics, economic development (or economic and social development) is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and object ...

as well as human well-being, while also ensuring financial affordability. This goal aims at ensuring every society in the world possess good infrastructure. Achieving SDG 9 will require significant financing and political will. Key challenges include improving internet access in developing countries, inadequate transport, (particularly in land-locked developing countries) and the disparity of Research and Development investment and the number of researchers in developing countries when compared to developed countries.

Outcome targets

SDG 9 is broken down into 8 specific targets to reach the SDG goal. The first five targets are called 'outcome targets' (9.1-9.5), with the last three named 'means of achieving targets' (9.a-9.c). Outcome targets have specific desired outcomes that achieve the objective of the SDG goal. They are as follows: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable

industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...

, increase access to small scale enterprises, upgrade existing infrastructure, and enhance scientific research. . Each target includes one or more indicators that measure the achieved progress.

Target 9.1: Develop sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructures

Railways-passengers-carried-passenger-km

Target 9.1 is: "Develop quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...

, including regional and trans-border infrastructure, to support

and human well-being, with a focus on affordable and fair access for all".United Nations (2017) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
A/RES/71/313
It has two indicators: * "Proportion of the rural population who live within 2 km of an all-season road" * "Passenger and freight volumes, by

mode of transport A mode of transport is a method or way of travelling, or of transporting people or cargo. The different modes of transport include air, water, and land transport, which includes rails or railways, road and off-road transport. Other modes of t ...

Target 9.2: Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization

Target 9.2 is "Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and by 2030, to raise significantly the industry's share of employment and GDP in line with national circumstances as well as to double its share in

least developed countries The least developed countries (LDCs) are developing countries listed by the United Nations that exhibit the lowest indicators of socioeconomic development. The concept of LDCs originated in the late 1960s and the first group of LDCs was listed b ...

" It has two indicators: * "Manufacturing value added as a proportion of GDP and per capita" * "Manufacturing employment as a proportion of total employment" Manufacturing is a major source of employment. In 2016, the least developed countries had less "manufacturing value added per capita." The figure for

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

was US$4,621, compared to about $100 in the least developed countries. The industry employment in the world hasn't drastically changed. In 1991, the industry employment made up around 21% of total employment in the world, while in 2017, the industry employment made up 22% of total employment in the world. Manufacturing employment is growing mostly in developing countries, while it declines in developed countries. In Germany, the manufacturing employment made up 47% of total employment in 1991, while it declined to 27% of total employment in 2017. In Kenya, the manufacturing employment made up 6% of total employment and has grown by two percent points to 8% in 2017.

Target 9.3: Increase access to financial services and markets

Target 9.3 is: "Increase the access of small-scale industrial and other enterprises, particularly in developing countries, to financial services including affordable credit and their integration into value chains and markets". It has two indicators: * "Proportion of small-scale industries in total industry value-added" * "Proportion of small-scale industries with a loan or line of credit" According to a UN progress report from 2020, "only 22% of small-scale industries in sub-Saharan Africa received loans or lines of credit, compared with 48% in Latin America and the Caribbean".

Target 9.4: Upgrade all industries and infrastructures for sustainability

Target 9.4 is: "By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities". It has only one indicator: "CO₂ emissions per unit of value added." According to a UN progress report from 2020, the "intensity of global carbon dioxide emissions has declined by nearly one quarter since 2000, showing a general decoupling of carbon dioxide emissions from GDP growth".

Target 9.5: Enhance research and upgrade industrial technologies

Research-and-development-expenditure-of-gdp

Target 9.5 is "Enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, in particular developing countries, including, by 2030, encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers per 1 million people and public and private research and development spending." It has two indicators: * "Research and development expenditure as a proportion of GDP" * "Number of Researchers (in full-time equivalent) per million inhabitants" In Europe and North America, the number of researchers per 1 million people jumped to 3,372, and in

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

, the number of researchers per million inhabitants was closer to 99 By 2018, women represented 33% of all researchers, although data are missing from some of the most populous countries. By 2018, research and development constituted an average 1.79% of the global GDP according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Although research expenditure rose in most regions between 2014 and 2018, 80% of countries still invested less than 1% of GDP in research and development by 2018. Text was copied from this source, which is available under
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO International License
/ref> The G20 countries still accounted for nine-tenths of research expenditure, researchers, publications and patents. In some cases, the researcher population rose faster than related expenditure, leaving less funding available to each researcher. Commitments to SDG 9.5 have not spurred an increase in reporting of data. On the contrary, a total of 99 countries reported data on domestic investment in research in 2015 but only 69 countries in 2018. Similarly, 59 countries recorded the number of researchers (in full-time equivalents) in 2018, down from 90 countries in 2015.

Means of implementation targets

Target 9.a: Facilitate sustainable infrastructure development for developing countries

Target 9.a is: "Facilitate sustainable and resilient infrastructure development in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

through enhanced financial, technological and technical support to African countries,

landlocked developing countries The landlocked developing countries (LLDC) are developing country, developing countries that are landlocked country, landlocked. Due to the economic and other disadvantages suffered by such countries, the majority of landlocked countries are least ...

and

Small Island Developing States The Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a grouping of developing country, developing countries which are small island country, island countries and small states that tend to share similar sustainable development challenges. These include s ...

." It has one indicator: "Total official international support (

official development assistance Official development assistance (ODA) is a category used by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to measure foreign aid. The DAC first adopted the concept in 1969. It is w ...

plus other official flows) to infrastructure". Mobile Cellular subscriptions

Target 9.b: Support domestic technology development and industrial diversification

Target 9.b is: "Support domestic technology development, research and innovation in

, including by ensuring a conducive policy environment for, inter alia, industrial diversification and value addition to commodities". It has one indicator: "Proportion of medium and high-tech industry value added in total value added"

Target 9.c: Universal access to information and communications technology

Target 9.c is: "Significantly increase access to information and

communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020". It has one indicator: "Proportion of population covered by a mobile network, by technology" Mobile-cellular signal coverage is this target's indicator and has improved a great deal. In previously "unconnected" areas of the globe, 85 percent of people now live in covered areas. Planet-wide, 95% of the population was covered in 2017. Millions of people are still unable to access the internet due to cost, coverage, and other reasons. It is estimated that just 53% of the world's population are currently internet users. Estimates suggest that by the end of 2020, the world will have reached just 57% global internet use and 23% in least developed countries, missing target 9.c by a wide margin.

Challenges

COVID-19 Pandemic

Even before the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

began in 2020, the world manufacturing growth was said to be declining. The pandemic hit industries hard and caused disruptions in value chains of goods and their supply, and has affected the digitization of business and services such as video conferencing, healthcare, teleworking etc.

Monitoring

High-level progress reports for all the SDGs are published in the form of reports by the United Nations Secretary General, the most recent one is from April 2020.United Nations Economic and Social Council (2020
Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals Report of the Secretary-General
High-level political forum on sustainable development, convened under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (E/2020/57), 28 April 2020 The report before that was from May 2019.United Nations Economic and Social Council (2019
Special edition: progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals
Report of the Secretary-General (E/2019/68), High-level political forum on sustainable development, convened under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (8 May 2019) Updates and progress can also be found on the SDG website that is managed by the United Nations.

Custodian agencies

The custodian agencies are responsible for data gathering and reporting on the indicators. They are:- * For Indicator 9.1.1:

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

(WB) * For Indicator 9.1.2: International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and

International Transport Forum The International Transport Forum (ITF) is an inter-governmental organisation within the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) system. It is the only global body with a mandate for all modes of transport. It acts as a ...

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

(ITF-OECD) * Both indicators under Target 9.2 and for Indicator 9.3.1 and Indicator 9.b.1:

United Nations Industrial Development Organization The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (French: Organisation des Nations unies pour le développement industriel; French/Spanish acronym: ONUDI) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that assists countries in e ...

(UNIDO). * For Indicator 9.3.2:

(UNIDO) and

(WB) * For the two indicator under Target 9.4:

(UNIDO) and

International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 associatio ...

(IEA) * For the two Indicators under Target 9.5: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UNESCO-UIS) * For Indicator 9.a.1:

(OECD) * For Indicator 9.c.1:

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)In the other common languages of the ITU: * * is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information ...

(ITU)

Links with other SDGs

SDG 9 "Industries, Innovation, & Infrastructure", like every other SDG, has a direct impact on the other 16 SDGs.

Organizations

UN system

(UNIDO) *

(WB) *

International Civil Aviation Organization The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sch ...

(ICAO) *

(ITF-OECD) *

(IEA) * UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UNESCO-UIS) * Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) *

(ITU)

References

External links

Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform

“Global Goals” Campaign - SDG 9

SDG-Track.org - SDG 9

UN SDG 9 in the US
{{Sustainable Development Goals Sustainable Development Goals 2015 establishments in New York City Projects established in 2015 Infrastructure investment Industrialisation Innovation