Malta has dropped five places in the global index of Sustainable Development Goals since 2019, recording the biggest regression in the sector pertaining to peace and good governance.
The SDGs are 17 targets that UN member states have agreed on achieving by 2030, ranging from ending poverty and hunger to combatting climate change and realising gender equality.
While the country’s score of 75.7 did not change much over two years, Malta now ranks 33rd in the global effort to hit these aims. It had placed 28th in 2019, according to the latest sustainable development report.
Within the EU bloc, Malta also slipped two places in two years to 22nd place.
In the last five years, the country went backwards when it came to ‘peace, justice and strong institutions’ (SDG 16) and ‘industry, innovation and infrastructure’ (SDG 9), according to Eurostat.
Malta scored -0.7 out of a progress score of 5 in SDG16, while the country’s status when it comes to the good governance goal now stands 37% below the EU average.
Indicators show that from 2015-2020, people’s trust in the transparency of the public sector began to falter, falling seven points from 60 to 53 (on a scale from 0 indicating very corrupt to 100 indicating very clean).
Likewise, while the percentage of the population confident in the Maltese judiciary’s independence had been improving since 2016, from 2019 to 2020 it dropped by four percentage points – down to 52%.
Reports of crime, violence or vandalism on the island also grew in recent years. In 2017, 10% of the population made such a report, while in 2019 this figure rose to around 14%.
“Industry, innovation and infrastructure” scored -0.5 in progress, 3.9% above the EU average. The backward steps were attributed to a drop in research and development investment.
The country reduced the percentage of GDP spent on research and development from 0.72 to 0.59% from 2015 to 2019.
On the other hand, the country has made strides towards achieving 11 other goals, most of all ‘zero hunger’ (SDG2), which pledges to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
While Malta’s status in moving towards this goal is 66.49% below the EU average, the country scored 4 out of 5 in progress, indicators showing that organic farming is significantly on the rise as well as government support to agricultural research and development.
In ‘sustainable cities and communities’ (SDG11), Malta recorded no progress, while regarding ‘clean water and sanitation’ (SDG 6) ‘life below water’ (SDG 14), ‘life on land’ (SDG 15), no data is available.
Overall, Malta was ahead of EU averages in its performance towards achieving seven of the goals, most notably in ‘partnerships for the goals’ (SDG17), for which advancement towards the target was 43% above the European Union average.