Ideas, Innovation, Implementation: India’s Journey Towards the SDGs

As the world reaches the mid-point of the window for the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), two questions confront global leaders and development stakeholders: Are we on track to achieve the SDGs? What can we do to accelerate efforts to meet them? For many countries, the COVID-19 pandemic was a shock that reversed decades of progress. Nonetheless, the world demonstrated remarkable resilience in making a recovery, and India managed the pandemic without allowing it to derail development and growth.

A reason for India’s resilience has been the wealth of lighthouse initiatives that bulwark the nation against external shocks. India’s Presidency of the G20, and its leadership in crafting a development agenda for the Global South, has allowed the country to draw attention to many of these best practices and encourage their adoption. 

As we begin to look ahead to a world beyond the 2030 Agenda, Reliance Foundation and Observer Research Foundation’s latest publication, Ideas, Innovation, Implementation: India’s Journey Towards the SDGs, showcases 17 lighthouse case studies from India — each primarily addressing one specific SDG — which could bring about a potential transformation if scaled and replicated in other geographies.

Implementing these ideas could hasten our journey to the SDGs, and provide a strong foundation on which a post-2030 agenda might build further.