Focal points for sustainable development strategies-Text mining-based comparative analysis of voluntary national reviews

J Environ Manage. 2020 Jun 1:263:110414. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110414. Epub 2020 Mar 10.

Abstract

Countries have to work out and follow tailored strategies for the achievement of their Sustainable Development Goals. At the end of 2018, more than 100 voluntary national reviews were published. The reviews are transformed by text mining algorithms into networks of keywords to identify country-specific thematic areas of the strategies and cluster countries that face similar problems and follow similar development strategies. The analysis of the 75 VNRs has shown that SDG5 (gender equality) is the most discussed goal worldwide, as it is discussed in 77% of the analysed Voluntary National Reviews. The SDG8 (decent work and economic growth) is the second most studied goal, With 76 %, while the SDG1 (no poverty) is the least focused goal, it is mentioned only in 48 % of documents and the SDG10 (reduced inequalities) in 49 %. The results demonstrate that the proposed benchmark tool is capable of highlighting what kind of activities can make significant contributions to achieve sustainable developments.

Keywords: Network analysis; Sustainability assessment; Sustainable development goals; Text mining; Voluntary national review.

MeSH terms

  • Data Mining
  • Economic Development*
  • Poverty
  • Socioeconomic Factors
  • Sustainable Development*