Global sustainable development report: background,progress, and recommendations

Formulating the GSDR Formulating the GSDR (global sustainable development report) is one of the important achievements initiated by the “Rio +20” summit, and it has received worldwide attention. Nowadays, the international community has made a preliminary consensus on the orientation, key focuses, frameworks, and time schedule of GSDR. But, there are still great divergences in the relationship between GSDR and SDGs/post-MDGs (sustainable development goals/post-2015 development agenda), the GSDR organizational model, and whether countries writing their own national sustainable development report or not. After reviewing the whole process of formulating GSDR, some recommendations for writing GSDR from the Chinese perspective are proposed. The GSDR report should be a science-based and policy-making-oriented assessment report. The GSDR should focus on the priority areas that SDGs/post-MDGs have already identified as core fields. “Limited in number, easy to quantify, and universally applicable” comprehensive assessment indices of sustainable development should be proposed. A GSDR international working group of experts should be established. Countries should be encouraged to formulate the “National Sustainable Development Report” according to their own domestic practices. GSDR should be integrated with the high-level political forum (HLPF). Meanwhile, some suggestions on China’s participation in the GSDR process are also proposed. China’s 2030 mid-term and long-term national sustainable development goals (CSDGs) based on both the SDGs/post-MDGs and domestic practice are proposed. According to the implementation of national sustainable development goals, China should start the appropriate assessment of the progress and regularly report on the national sustainable development. Chinese scientists should be encouraged to actively participate in the process of GSDR.