According to UN statistics, the US is falling down in the ranking of countries that can sustainably develop.
According to the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development, the US has fallen behind other developed nations in ensuring that they are meeting the criteria for progress. This country, which was 32nd in the UN’s 193 member states last year has fallen eleven places in one year. Now it trails Ukraine and Cuba and is just ahead of Bulgaria.
The ratings are based on a country’s progress in fulfilling the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, 17 vaguely positive-sounding metrics meant to epitomize societal progress. These ratings include tangible achievements such as “clean waterAnd sanitation”And “zero hunger” alongside less defined aims like “quality education” and “responsible consumption and production,” but all are described on the UN’s website as critical to implementing the organization’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – something all member nations have agreed to do.
Scandinavian countries lead the UN’s rankings for 2022, with Finland at number one and Denmark, Sweden and Norway rounding out the top four. Japan was the first non-European nation to be included in the UN’s 2022 rankings. It narrowly missed the top 20 at 19.
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Kathleen Frydl is a historian. “American exceptionalism” for the US’ purported decline in her piece for The Conversation on Friday, arguing the former has “cheated many Americans out of the healthcare, education, economic security and environment they deserve”While the former “keeps the country from candid appraisalsAnd course correction” amid a rise in ill-defined “threats to democracy.”
Certainly, surging economic equality and a two-year sustained drop in life expectancy would appear to put the US on the wrong side of several of the Goals, including “good health and well-being,” “no poverty,” and “reduced inequalities.”The UN however rated its performance in two of these three areas as excellent, while only inequality was considered to be negative. Instead, it focused on the supposed fall in “responsible consumption and production.”
Not only is the UN flagging the US as a country in decline, but so are other entities. According to the Economist, it was classified as an “in decline nation”. “flawed democracy”earlier in the year, during its evaluation of “state of democracy” worldwide. Its metrics take into account countries’ electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties.
