WASD uses VNRs as the main data source for the SDGT. As a self-assessment process, each VNR enables UN Member States to review and report their progress in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. These reviews are voluntary, inclusive, and country-led, reflecting each nation’s priorities, achievements, and challenges. The analysis of VNRs combines advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) with rigorous expert evaluation to ensure accuracy, depth, and transparency. AI assisted tools are used to scan, summarise, and structure large volumes of VNR text, enabling efficient processing and identification of key themes. This is followed by manual expert review, where specialists interpret context, verify accuracy, and capture nuanced insights that automated systems may overlook. Comparisons between AI and human assessments are conducted to test reliability, ensuring a balanced, evidence-based evaluation across all SDGs. The process also includes a layered expert review: academic experts from the WASD first assess the SDGT team’s draft, followed by senior WASD experts who provide detailed commentary. A third-opinion review is then undertaken to enhance objectivity, and country-specific experts validate local accuracy and relevance. Where data gaps or inconsistencies exist, WASD uses proxy indicators or qualitative assessments, ensuring that all 17 SDGs are systematically evaluated. This approach transforms the VNR findings into a standardised performance framework, allowing for consistent and transparent measurement of sustainability across nations. In the final stage, the refined analysis is uploaded to the SDGT platform, ensuring full transparency and enabling public feedback for continuous improvement. In doing so, we aim at determining the country’s efficacy and progress of achieving the SDGs by allocating the score from 0-5 for each SDG as follows:
- 0 (No progress made at all to achieve SDG no data is recorded in the country’s VNR)
- 1 (severely off-track with very little progress made to achieving the SDG)
- 2 ( Off-track with limited progress made and minimal improvements).
- 3 (Moderately off-track to achieving SDG but challenges remain).
- 4 (On-track with noticeable progress but not yet fully achieved).
- 5 (Achieved the SDG while maintaining the performance)
Each SDG will be assigned a score with a grand total of 85 points the first equation will be the country’s total points achieved divided by 85 (17 multiply by the max score of 5). This equation gives the overall percentage progress toward achieving all the SDGs.
= % progress towards achieving all the SDGs
The second equation used is the number of SDGs a country achieved from the total 17, so if a country scores a 4 or 5 that will be considered as an achieved a score of 4 will be considered achieved due to the fact that the country has made considerable progress with achieving the SDG but still requires more action while 5 is considered a perfect score as the country has achieved the SDG and is now maintain the performance the values will then be divided by 17 due to the fact that there are 17 SDGs
= % progress of achieved SDGs
