Impacts of government attention on achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from China

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are crucial in tackling the sustainability challenges and emerging issues faced by humanity, with government attention being a significant factor in promoting their successful achievement. However, there is limited quantitative research systematically examining the impacts of government attention on SDGs progress. This study employs text analysis and a panel regression model to analyze the impacts of government attention intensity, text similarity, and tone on the achievement of SDGs, utilizing data extracted from China’s Government Work Reports spanning the decade from 2010 to 2020. The findings reveal that the Chinese government attention to the SDGs has generally increased over time. The heightened focus has notably bolstered the achievement of the SDGs, with the most significant impact observed post-2015. Government attention intensity was identified as the most impactful factor. Moreover, government attention intensity, text similarity, and tone have positively influenced the coupling coordination relationship between 17 SDGs, as measured by the coupling coordination degree, leading to a more harmonious and balanced achievement of socioeconomic and environmental goals in China. Financial investment served as a moderating factor, enhancing the positive impacts of attention intensity, text similarity and tone on the promotion of SDGs attainment. The effects of government attention on SDGs progress were notably positive in the eastern region, exhibiting greater significance in areas with stronger governance capacity compared to those with weaker governance capacity. This study provides insightful information for enhancing the modernization and efficiency of China’s national governance system, promoting SDGs at local and global scales, and fostering sustainable transformation.

Keywords

Government attention / Sustainable development / Coupling coordination / Text analysis / Financial investment / SDG

Data availability

The data used in this study are publicly available. Most indicators are extracted from government work reports published on the official websites of Chinese local governments, the China Statistical Yearbook, the local Government Statistical Yearbook, and the official website of the National Bureau of Statistics of China. This study obtained research data through policy text analysis and public data organization.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Chenggang Li: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Supervision, Methodology, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Conceptualization. Ziling Chen: Writing – original draft, Visualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation. Qutu Jiang: Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Methodology, Supervision. Mu Yue: Writing – review & editing. Liang Wu: Supervision, Funding acquisition. Youhui Bao: Data curation. Bei Huang: Supervision. Alexander Boxuan Wang: Data curation. Yuanyuan Tan: Writing – review & editing. Zhenci Xu: Writing – review & editing, Supervision.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This study is supported by Guizhou Province Major Science and Technology Achievement Transformation Project (QKHCG[2024]ZD016), the Excellent Young Scientists Fund from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42422105), Guizhou Province Natural Science Research Project (Qian Jiao Ji [2023] No. 033) and Provincial Science and Technology Program of Guizhou Province (Grant No. 20201Y288).

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.geosus.2024.08.011.

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