Czech Republic ranked world’s 7th most developed country in new UN report

The Czech Republic has been rated among the world’s top ten most developed countries according to the 2019 Sustainable Development Report, a UN initiative now in its fourth year produced by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) to identify where the world’s countries are at in long-term goals for sustainable development (SDGs).

Countries in the report are evaluated in the Report on 17 key criteria that include long-term SDGs like eliminating poverty and hunger, establishing quality education, providing access to clean water and sanitation, promoting responsible consumption and production, and much more.

Of the 17 SDGs, the Czech Republic was scored a “major challenges remain” in the area of Climate Action; it’s worth noting, however, that 31 of the world’s 36 OECD countries were rated the same, with only Denmark, Latvia, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Switzerland scoring a slightly-better “significant challenges remain.”

Of the remaining 16 goals, the Czech Republic was rated “significant challenges remain” or better, with no data available for a Life Below Water goal, which makes sense given the country’s land-locked status (at the same time, two Czech cave divers recently set record for living a week under water).

The Czech Republic ranked best in the No Poverty index, having already met the SDG criteria for achieving this goal. The country also rated highly (“challenges remain”) in the areas of Clean Water and Sanitation, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Reduced Inequalities, Sustainable Cities and Communities, Life on Land, and Peace, Justice, & Strong Institutions.

In terms of meeting these goals in the future, the Czech Republic was deemed to be “on track” to meet 6 of the 17 goals, and “moderately increasing” in five others.

In the areas of Gender Equality, Clean Water and Sanitation, Climate Action, and Partnerships for the goals, however, the Czech Republic was rated as “stagnating.”

Overall, the Czech Republic accumulated a score of 80.7, good enough to place it 7th among the 162 countries evaluated in the sustainable development index.

As in most of these reports, Scandinavian countries dominated the list of most developed countries, with Denmark, Sweden, and Finland taking the top three positions. But the Czech Republic topped Norway (#8).

The top 10 countries were all from Europe, with France, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Estonia all rated highly.

Czech neighbor Slovakia, however, just missed the top 25, coming in at #27. The United States was ranked #35.

These are the world’s most developed countries according to the 2019 Sustainable Development Report: