In today's podcast, we talk with Guillaume Lafortune, Vice President and Head of the Paris Office of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the largest global network of scientists and practitioners dedicated to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We discuss the intersections of sustainability, global progress, the UN Summit of the Future, and the daunting challenges we face. From the impact of war on climate initiatives to transforming data into narratives that drive change, we explore how global cooperation, education, and technology pave the way for a sustainable future and look at the lessons of history and the power of diplomacy in shaping our path forward.
Guillaume Lafortune joined SDSN in 2017 to lead work on SDG data, policies, and financing including the preparation of the annual Sustainable Development Report (which includes the SDG Index and Dashboards). Between 2020 and 2022 Guillaume was a member of The Lancet Commission on COVID-19, where he coordinated the taskforces on “Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets” and “Green Recovery”, and co-authored the final report of the Commission. Guillaume is also a member of the Grenoble Center for Economic Research (CREG) at the Grenoble Alpes University. Previously, he served as an economist at the OECD in Paris and at the Ministry of Economic Development in the Government of Quebec (Canada). Guillaume is the author of 50+ scientific publications, book chapters, policy briefs and international reports on sustainable development, economic policy and good governance.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
There must be a lot of psychology and diplomacy involved in presenting statistics and evidence effectively. How do you ensure that the presentation makes a real impact and contributes to positive change in governance and beyond?
GUILLAUME LAFORTUNE
The SDSN has been set up to mobilize research and science for the Sustainable Development Goals. Each year, we aim to provide a fair and accurate assessment of countries' progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The development goals were adopted back in 2015 by all UN member states, marking the first time in human history that we have a common goal for the entire world.
Our goal each year with the SDG index is to have sound methodologies and translate these into actionable insights that can generate impactful results at the end of the day. But I think you're very right, Mia, that the data and the statistics is not enough. It needs to be turned also into narrative and stories in order to have impact.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Before we dive into the Sustainable Development Report and Index, which you've recently published, tell us a little bit about your journey.
LAFORTUNE
I've always been interested in making a positive impact in the world, which is why I care about public policy. Throughout my career, I've always been part of departments that are in charge of statistics and data. It's all about telling nice stories with data. So this is what we try to do with this SDG Index to have sound methodologies, but also to translate this into actionable insights for generating, at the end of the day, impact. I've always wanted to be in the room with those that change the world. There's different ways to do this, but my way is to try to contribute in a modest way with the analytical work that I do. Finally, another motivator in my journey has been to try to think what can I do to make this world a better place for my kids, but also for the future generations.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
I see that you are inspiring change to move through inertia of stagnancy, but presently your findings are that only 16 percent of targets are on track. So how do you keep that motivation when we're only making progress on 16 percent?
LAFORTUNE
Here we're digging into the actual results and findings of this year's edition. The number you're quoting is absolutely right.
Out of all of the targets that we track, only 16 percent are estimated to be on track. And this is an agenda that combines environmental development, social development, economic development and good governance. Currently, none of the SDGs are on track to be achieved at the global levels. The SDGs particularly important that are off track are SDG 2: Zero Hunger, SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG 14: Life below water, SDG 15: Life on Land, and SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
Additionally, what we documented this year in the report is that the BRICS countries are making quite significant progress. In 2015, they were below the world average SDG Index, now they are above the world average. Countries like Benin, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Togo, UAE, and Uzbekistan are making quite significant progress. And some of them have developed very innovative tools like Sustainable Development Goals Bond, sovereign financing instruments structured around the SDGs. That's the case for a country like Benin and Uzbekistan. These are examples we can build on in order to understand what needs to happen in order to achieve the goals. There's six years left. It's very clear that we won't achieve all of those goals by 2030. One of the recommendations we are making in this year's Sustainable Development Report is to extend this agenda to 2050, which would align with the Paris Climate Agreement and let us bring new topics into the mix, for instance, artificial intelligence, which was not mentioned in the official 2030 agenda document.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
I'd like to know how AI can be used to implement or accelerate a lot of these changes. There are so many conflicting views on it, as a way of perhaps balancing the power grid or democratizing education, but it can also be a threat to our democracy and journalism in a post-truth world. The infrastructures are growing, and some countries are really progressing at quite a rapid pace, such as China becoming the first electro-state. And yet, it's imbalanced around the world. The report and index highlight a significant gap in financing for sustainable development, especially in low-income countries. And while renewable energy is on the rise, around 675 million people still lack electricity. So what measures do you think are essential to expand energy access and support a global transition to clean energy?
GUILLAUME LAFORTUNE
Infrastructure is key for this agenda. At the end of the day, the SDGs are a vision, but it's also an investment agenda. There's been various estimates that have been put forward in terms of the financing gap to achieve the SDGs. Often they tend to focus on the investment gap to a large extent. Essentially the financing gap, especially for developing economies, would be somewhere between one and four trillion per year. And these estimates are probably underestimated because perhaps we underestimate the investments that are needed for climate mitigation, adaptation, loss, and damage. One to four trillion might seem like a very large number, right? And for developing economies, this is perhaps a financing gap of 20 percent or 30 percent of GDP per year that would need to be mobilized to invest in the SDGs. But when we take a step back and look at this from the global economy, one to four trillion is basically equivalent to between one and four percent of global GDP, a hundred trillion USD a year.
The story needs to be told that there is actually no financial impossibility in achieving those goals and investing into the infrastructures that are needed into the SDGs. But it's basically a question of political leadership in particular to align the global financing flows, to achieve sustainable infrastructure and sustainable development, and help the countries that need it the most. This is why at SDSN we try to support this whole reform of the global financial architecture because financing is a big part of the story.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
We've just had the elections in France. We have elections all over the world in the coming months. We see some of these fears with climate migration, immigration. And we see ideological divides threatening the stability of democracy. How can we ensure progress doesn't exacerbate division? How do you think that the elections in France and around the world might shift our approach to sustainability?
LAFORTUNE
I think there's a real risk, considering the composition of the parliament, that we will end up in a political deadlock. At a time when French people are calling for a clear vision on major national issues, whether it's migration, security, health, education, but also deficit and debt management, we might end up in a situation where we will have a new prime minister, but because things are so divided in the parliament, there might be so called motion de censure, whereby the prime minister will be overthrown quite quickly. I think the situation in France reflects a broader situation in many European countries where we see growing polarization, fragmentation of our societies. Many countries are facing a move towards more conservative governments in Europe. Many countries are having a hard time forming a government, adopting a budget. It's been the case in Germany. We've also seen political violence with the shooting of prime Minister Fico a few weeks ago from the Slovak Republic. So this is a very tense situation. The risk in my mind is a backlash against the Agenda 2030, the European Green Deal and the support for long term transformations. When we have all this political fragmentation, political violence and so on, there is a risk that we're not able institutionally to advance those long-term goals and objectives. When we look currently, Europe adopted back in 2019, the European Green Deal, which at the time we saw as a great example of leadership on this issue, and it was followed by a number of bold commitments for climate neutrality. But when we look at the latest document of the European Council, the strategy for 2024 to 2029, which was just published a few weeks ago, there's zero mention of sustainable development goals, zero mention of Agenda 2030. Issues like climate and biodiversity are barely mentioned. We used to see Europe as the major leader on the SDGs, and we've seen over the past couple of years the narrative shifting quite drastically.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
And just to help us understand the methodologies behind the UN SDG report and index, I think it's helpful to know the context behind its creation. We're drowning in so much data. How do you highlight the key points that need immediate decisions and action?
LAFORTUNE
At SDSN, we focus on two important documents: the UN Charter from 1945 that defines the key principles for the United Nations, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted here in Paris 1948. A thing we've been trying to track this year is if we think that global multilateralism based on the UN system, whether it's the reform of the global financial architecture, whether it's in general global cooperation on socioeconomic issues, is important to achieve those goals. We ask ourselves which are the countries that promote the most UN based multilateralism. We looked at this by focusing on six indicators: which countries ratify most of the major UN treaties, treaties that have been ratified by more than 50 percent of the global community; which countries tend to vote alongside the rest of the majority vote at the UN General Assembly, so we looked at more than 480 recorded votes at the UN General Assembly; the participation, membership, in UN organizations; which countries promote peace and demilitarization; the adoption of unilateral coercive measures which are forbidden in the UN system; and which countries tend to pay their dues on time to finance the UN system and also achieve their targets on official development assistance and international solidarity. We compiled those different metrics and made this available in our report and online. The results are quite good. When we look at 193 UN member states, the median score on this index, which goes from zero, very low support to a hundred, high support, the median score is 70. So despite crises, there's actually a majority of countries that want this UN system to work. And what gives me hope is that when the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted back in 2015, there was this agreement that 40 countries each year would go in front of the international community and present voluntary national reviews. Now in 2024, we have 190 countries out of 193 that have done this. There's only three countries that haven't done their voluntary national reviews, and two of them are in deep political and social crises: Haiti, Myanmar, and the United States of America.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
And talking about solutions, I hear that coal, oil and gas, these antiquated technologies will peak and begin to decline by the end of the decade. I was just speaking earlier this week with Richard Black of the clean energy think tank Ember, and he says that, if wind and solar generation continue growing as it is, in 2026, we would generate around a quarter of the world's electricity. That's fantastic to stop the conflict about cities. As you know, we're living in the century of the city. By 2050, around 75 percent of the world's population will be living in cities, so urbanization is of course speeding up. Many cities struggle with inadequate housing and pollution with around 8 million people a year dying from air pollution. So when it comes to solutions about housing and energy, transport, climate, food, waste management, what do you envisage for our cities and the rapid transition and adaptation efforts that need to take place?
LAFORTUNE
It's very clear from the work of Professor Johan Rockström on the planetary boundaries, that we need to take decisive action in this decade in order to avoid irreversible environmental tipping points. It’s such a pity that we're losing so much time, that there's so many wars, conflicts, and suffering creating so much distraction when a prerequisite to advance on those issues is to achieve peace. It's pretty clear that we will miss the 1.5 degree target from the Paris Climate Agreement. What we're pushing for at SDSN is, in order to advance on those transformations in the energy system, there's just so much benefit in regional cooperation. We could create an integrated energy grid where we truly benefit from the wind in northern Europe, the sun in southern Europe, a mix of hydro and perhaps also some of the nuclear advantages that some countries have.
We should even think even beyond the EU, think about cooperation with the Western Balkans, even with the MENA region. What we do a lot is help governments build long-term pathways. We've been working on a deep decarbonization pathways initiative here in Paris. We model the economic and energy changes needed, as well as the food and land system, because a quarter of global emissions actually come from AFOLU emissions. And there's a large number of estimates that show a large majority of those goals cannot be achieved without the involvement of local and regional authorities. We released a report last March with the OECD and the European Committee of the Regions where we surveyed more than 240 regional leaders. A very high percentage of those leaders told us they use the SDGs when they think about local and regional policies. The number one barrier they have to achieve their goals is financing. Most of them have no access or limited access to funding from development banks. On the 25th of July, the day before the opening of the Olympics, we will actually release the results of about 18 months of work by the SDSN Commission on Urban SDG Financing which will make clear recommendations around how to solve this issue around access to financing for local and regional authorities. We need local and regional leaders to be at the table because they're absolutely crucial to implement this agenda.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
During these trying times in this decade of transformation, what are some of the things that give you hope and joy? And drawing away for a moment from your very urgent work at the UN-SDSN, what are your reflections on the beauty and wonder of nature and the kind of world we're leaving for their next generation?
LAFORTUNE
What gives me hope and joy are four things. First, the SDGs remain very relevant. We see the young generation engaged on these issues, sometimes choosing their jobs based on the commitment of the companies. The second point is that the SDGs are affordable. There's no financing gap, and that's why this discussion around global financial architecture is absolutely important. The third point is that there are no technical barriers to implementing those goals. We're putting all kids in schools from age four or five to age fifteen and achieving universal health coverage. Lastly, we have a window of opportunity over the next 18 months to make quite significant breakthroughs on those objectives.
There is this UN Summit of the Future in September, which is about thinking of a UN system, since a lot of the UN system now still is still based on a consensus that was achieved after World War II, when there were, roughly speaking, 50 UN member states, when there are 193 now. Then, we have COP29 in Azerbaijan and COP30 in 2025 in Brazil.
And about the beauty of the world, I was born in Canada, so I’ve been exposed to forest, lakes, mountains from a very young age. I've always had the willingness to preserve the beauty of nature. Especially when you have kids, you hope that they will benefit from an environment which is environmentally safe, and that they will be able to live in peace. We are currently in a situation where we're facing very deep, significant dangers, with the rise of tensions between basically nuclear powers. And this has to stop. If we avoid this escalation of conflict, there's no reason why we cannot make major breakthroughs in this decade and beyond, on all seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, which would make the life of future generations, including my own kids, much better.
SDSN's Summit of the Future Recommendations
SDG Transformation Center
SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance
