Uneven but promising: Disadvantaged regions show greater potential for advancing the SDGs

Abstract

Great variability among regions in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlights the necessity of adopting a multidimensional regional classification perspective. Existing studies tend to overlook structural differences among regions in their social, economic, and environmental foundations, making it difficult to systematically identify the processes and interactions among SDGs across regions with similar characteristics. Using a systematic classification approach based on social, economic, and environmental dimensions, this study classifies 31 provinces of China into seven types and evaluates their SDG progress, interactions, and priority goals from 2000 to 2023. The study found that a high development foundation does not ensure faster SDG progress or more synergistic interactions. Although provinces with high performance in all three dimensions (social, economic, and environmental) have the highest average SDG scores (66), they show the slowest growth (0.52) and the lowest share of synergistic interactions (60.0 %). By contrast, provinces with different combinations of social, economic, and environmental advantages and disadvantages show distinct patterns of growth, synergies, trade-offs, and priority goals. In some cases, provinces that are not the most developed display even stronger synergistic tendencies than both highly developed and severely disadvantaged regions. Different region types also prioritize different SDGs, with SDG 3, SDG 7, SDG 11, and SDG 17 commonly emerging as key goals across multiple region types. This study offers a new perspective on understanding regional variations and interaction mechanisms in SDG progress, providing practical guidance for tailored policy formulation and collaborative sustainable development among similar regions.

Keywords

Regional classification / Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) progress / SDG interactions / Priority goals

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