SDG 17 Partnerships for the goals

SDG 17 has a different character to the other SDGs. In order to achieve the SDGs, cooperation between countries, governments, businesses and civil society organisations is hugely important. It is difficult to measure that cooperation in statistical terms.

• The Netherlands met the OECD target for development aid in 2023.
• In 2024, trade volume from low-income countries was higher than in 2023 (3.6 percent).
• The land footprint is falling but remains approximately three times the area of the Netherlands.
• In the most recent year (from 2021 to 2022), the material footprint fell by 2.7 percent.

Dashboard and indicators

Colour codes and notes to the dashboards in the Monitor of Well-being

The focus here is on forming and maintaining partnerships to help achieve the other goals. Cooperation, especially in an international context, is essential in order to strengthen capacity and make the necessary resources available to implement the sustainable development agenda. This requires internationally consistent policies, a cooperative environment and the willingness to enter into new global partnerships. SDG 17 is concerned with the effects that developments in the Netherlands have on other countries.

Unfortunately, no easily quantifiable indicators are available for most of the SDG 17 sub-goals. Statistical agencies around the world are grappling with the question of how SDG 17 can be made more quantifiable. CBS currently monitors only a small number of SDG 17 sub-goals. As a result, unlike for the other SDGs, no classification has been made in terms of resources and opportunities, use, outcomes and subjective assessment. Nor is it possible to give a general picture of the direction of this SDG. For this reason, we only describe trends and positions for the most important results of the individual indicators here.

In terms of the provision of official development aid (ODA), the Netherlands is towards the top of the EU ranking (6th out of 27 countries). In 1970, UN member countries agreed to spend 0.7 percent of their gross national income (GNI) on development assistance (the OECD standard). In 2023, development aid provided by the Netherlands stood at 0.7 percent of GNI. The other EU countries that met the OECD standard were Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden. Income transfers from people living in the Netherlands (residents) to people living in other countries (non-residents) stood at 1.5 percent of GDP. This again put the Netherlands towards the top of the EU ranking in 2023 (7th out of 27 countries). The actual effects on well-being ‘elsewhere’ depend on how the money is spent by the recipients. The assumption is that development aid and income transfers help to ensure the livelihoods of people in the receiving countries.

With its major sea ports, the Netherlands has long maintained intensive trade relationships with other countries. In order to give an impression of where the effects of that are felt, the countries that the Netherlands trades with are divided into four groups: low-income countries, lower-middle-income countries, upper-middle-income countries and high-income countries. This classification is derived from the World Bank and is based on a country’s gross national income per capita. In SDG 17, the focus is on supporting low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries. Import values have been adjusted for price fluctuations using a new and still experimental method; all amounts in the dashboards are expressed in 2020 prices.

For goods imports from lower-middle-income countries, the trend has turned from rising to stable. Imports from low-income countries increased in the most recent year (by 3.6 percent). Elsewhere reveals that the lion’s share of goods imports actually comes from high-income and upper-middle-income countries. Together, these two groups of countries account for over 90 percent of the import flow. These import figures also include re-exports: goods that have been imported into the Netherlands and leave the country again in a (virtually) unprocessed state.

Besides contributing to the economy in other countries, the Netherlands can also transfer knowledge via students. SDG 17 is specifically concerned with students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA: the 27 EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein). In 2024, some 15.9 percent of new university students came from non-EEA countries. This percentage is trending upwards, whereas previously it was stable. The increase in English-language study programmes and the number of international students is considered to be beneficial to well-being elsewhere in the world. The well-being impacts can also be positive for the Netherlands itself: foreign students who stay and work in the Netherlands will contribute to the Dutch economy.

Footprints measure the quantity of resources used and the associated impacts on nature, climate and other aspects of well-being caused globally by the consumption of Dutch households and government. Thus, the material footprint measures the quantity of raw materials (biomass, fossil fuels, metals and non-metallic minerals) used worldwide to sustain consumption in the Netherlands. By comparison, the land footprint measures the area of land needed worldwide to do this, and the greenhouse gas footprint measures the quantity of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) emitted worldwide.

The trend in the land footprint is downwards. In 2022, 0.7 hectares of land were required for the consumption needs of each inhabitant. This amounts to approximately three times the area of the Netherlands. The greenhouse gas footprint is stable. In 2022, 13.5 tonnes of CO₂ equivalents were emitted per inhabitant, which corresponds to total global emissions of 239 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents. In the most recent year (from 2021 to 2022), the material footprint fell by 2.7 percent. In 2022, 31.7 tonnes per capita of biomass, fossil fuels, metals and non-metallic minerals were used to sustain consumption in the Netherlands. That amounts to 561 million tonnes. In 2022, the Netherlands’ material footprint was one of the lowest in the EU27. This is consistent with the observation in SDG12 Responsible consumption and production that, compared with the EU, domestic per capita material consumption is relatively low and resource productivity is relatively high. A relatively small footprint compared with other EU countries is likely to be an overly positive framing, however. The other countries of the EU are, like the Netherlands, high-income countries with a bigger environmental and climate footprint than most of the world’s other countries.