Italy on the road to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals

In Italy, as in the rest of Europe, governments are pushing for a rapid recovery of economic growth and productivity after the crisis caused by the global pandemic, through massive investments and reforms for an efficient management of the financial resources used. To launch the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), the paper aims to map the current situation of Italian regions in terms of sustainable development, as a prerequisite for subsequent analysis aimed at assessing the impact of NRRP interventions and the degree of achievement of project objectives. The plan is divided into three strategic axes, shared at European level: digitisation and innovation, ecological transition, and social inclusion and aims to repair the economic and social damage caused by the pandemic and reduce the structural weaknesses of the Italian economy. To reduce territorial, generational and gender inequalities, NRRP allocates 40% (82 out of 206 billion) of the funds to the South, the Italian region with the greatest economic lag, as well as a significant investment in young people and women. ISTAT data on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were used to capture the current situation in Italy. The 17 goals are measured by a consistent set of indicators of high statistical quality, provided at the regional level. Principal component analysis allowed us to identify the three most representative variables that explain 76% of the total variance. The first principal component was more strongly associated with the economic-social variables: Poverty, Education and Labour, while the second was associated with the socio-environmental variables: Sustainable energy, Land, Peace, Justice and Institutions. Finally, the third principal component was associated with only 2 economic-ecological variables: Food and agriculture and Climate. To identify groups of regions with homogeneous profiles, a hierarchical cluster analysis was performed and 4 clusters were identified, with compositions ranging from critical to positive situations in dealing with the SDGs. Finally, the geography of convergence on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that emerged from the analysis reflects a situation well known to public administrators. The indicators that distinguish the regions of the North from those of the South relate to industry, innovation and infrastructure, inequalities, and partnership, while there is less dualism in the goals related to food and agriculture, consumption and production, and life on Earth. Therefore, the agricultural vocation of the South of Italy and the wealth of resources related to the use of land can be among the key factors for the interventions envisaged in the NRRP to reduce a gap that has lasted too long.