Challenges and Priorities in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: A Multi‐Scaled Global Analysis

ABSTRACT The existing literature widely addresses countries' specific challenges and priorities in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, these efforts mostly remain either global‐generalist or local‐narrower scales, containing a big gap for the studies holistically exploring the issue through geographic and economic scales in a global manner. Aiming to provide a contribution to bridging the gap, this study presents a holistic approach by conducting a multi‐scaled content analysis on voluntary national reviews (VNRs) of 188 countries, delivering comparative research on global, geographic, and economic challenges and priorities of their SDGs achievement. The prominent findings indicate that global and economic groups' challenges are clustered around poverty and crises, accounting for more than 60%, while the leading priorities include education, strong governance, and source protection within the same range. In all geographic classifications, over 50% of countries identify the challenges as crises, poverty, and climate change, and verbalize priorities as governance, source protection, education, and climate change. The findings advise policymakers to consider and prioritize geographical differences in SDGs analyses. While climate change is a common priority across all geographic and economic scales, policymakers should focus on strategies based on governance and local needs on a geographic scale rather than an economic one. For governments, lack of data and inadequate reporting initiatives are vital challenges in policymaking and international cooperation. These issues necessitate more effective monitoring of SDGs achievement processes and adaptation to local contexts.