Measuring the Distance to 2030 Targets in Vietnam

This paper assesses SDGs performance and distance to the 2030 targets for accelerating progress in Vietnam. Our assessment is conducted on Vietnam’s implementation of the complementarities between the ASEAN Vision and the UN Agenda. We find that Vietnam is on track to achieve the targets in the areas of poverty eradication as well as connectivity and infrastructure enhancement. However, our analysis shows top gaps related to insufficient resilience capacity, inefficient material use, and acute environmental impact. In addition, the COVID-19 crisis has undermined many of the achievements and prospects of the country on certain SDGs. In order to close the gaps in the coming decade, Vietnam will need to aggressively make focused efforts. We propose that the best way is to target efforts on fundamental institutional reform and growth paradigm transformation. Accordingly, the stakeholder approach must be valued over the whole-of-political-system approach and shifting the growth paradigm from the factor-based to the efficiency-driven cannot be postponed.