Working Papers

Between the many resolutions, speeches, reports and other documents that are produced each year, the United Nations is awash in text. It is an ongoing challenge to create a coherent and useful picture of this corpus. In particular, there is an interest in measuring how the work of the United Nations system aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There is a need for a scalable, objective, and consistent way to measure how similar any given publication is to each of the 17 SDGs. This paper explains a proof-of-concept process for building such a system using machine learning algorithms. By creating a model of the 17 SDGs it is possible to measure how similar the contents of…

This paper maps interrelationships among targets of the Sustainable Development Goal dedicated to oceans (SDG 14), as well as interrelationships between those targets and other SDGs. This is done using a large number of UN reports as well as scientific publications. The literature identifies many linkages among the targets of SDG 14; most of these targets are potentially synergistic with one another. Many linkages also exist between SDG 14 targets and other SDGs. Different targets under SDG 14 link to different SDGs. This has implications for policy discussions on how to achieve progress on SDG 14. The interrelationships that we highlight can be used as a tool for dialogue between policy…