Tracking progress and interlinkages in SDG achievement: A monitoring index approach with insights from Jordan

Established by the United Nations in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) consist of 17 interrelated objectives intended to address global economic, social, and environmental challenges in an integrated manner. This study proposes a national SDG monitoring index for Jordan, constructed using a comprehensive set of performance indicators. To capture interlinkages among the goals, correlation analysis is first undertaken, followed by the application of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to consolidate the indicators into aggregated goal-level indices. Subsequently, annual growth trends are analyzed to assess the extent to which the SDGs are likely to be achieved by 2030. The empirical results reveal pronounced synergies between SDG 6 and SDG 9 while SDG 5 is associated with the most significant trade-offs. The remaining goals demonstrate varying degrees of synergy and conflict, predominantly falling within the low to moderate range. At the dimensional level, the environmental goals exhibit the highest degree of internal coherence, whereas the means of implementation dimension is characterized by the greatest trade-offs. Although improvements were observed in 14 of the 17 goals and across all four dimensions during the 2005 to 2022 period. Trend analyses suggests that the full realization of any of the goals by 2030 remains unlikely. These findings underscore the necessity of accounting for interdependencies and minimizing multicollinearity in the development of composite indices. In light of these insights, it is recommended that Jordan’s policy agenda and resource allocation strategies place greater emphasis on reversing stagnation and decline in the underperforming goals to accelerate progress toward the 2030 Agenda. • A PCA-based SDG monitoring index effectively captures interlinkages, addressing multicollinearity in indicator aggregation. • A national SDG monitoring index for Jordan using interlinkage assessment and PCA shows synergies in SDGs 6 and 9, tradeoffs in SDG 5. • While 14 out of 17 SDGs and all dimensions improved between 2005–2022, none are on track for full achievement by 2030, requiring urgent policy acceleration. • The SDGs are highly ambitious, and full achievement by 2030 remains challenging, especially for developing countries facing socio-economic and political constraints.