Information and Communications Technologies for Sustainable Development Goals: State-of-the-Art, Needs and Perspectives

TLDR

The 2030 Development Agenda adopted by the UN in 2015 defines 17 SDGs and 169 targets. The paper seeks to uncover correlations between SDGs and ICTs, examine ICT roles and opportunities in achieving the SDGs, and identify research gaps across social, economic, and environmental perspectives. The authors review ICT roles and opportunities in SDG pursuit and identify research gaps across social, economic, and environmental dimensions. The review shows that most IEEE and ACM SDG research focuses on technical aspects, neglecting holistic social good, highlighting an urgent need to raise awareness and innovate ICTs to help all nations achieve the SDGs by 2030.

Abstract

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly accepted the 2030 Development Agenda, which has included 92 paragraphs, and the Paragraph 91 defined 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets. The goal of this paper is to discover the correlations among SDGs and information and communications technologies (ICTs). This paper discusses the roles and opportunities that ICTs play in pursuing the SDGs. We identify a number of research gaps to those three pillars, social, economic, and environmental perspectives, of sustainable development. After extensive literature reviews on the SDG-related research initiatives and activities, we find that the majority of contributions to SDGs recognized by the IEEE and ACM research communities have mainly focused on the technical aspects while there are lack of the holistic social good perspectives. Therefore, there are essential and urgent needs to raise the awareness and call for attentions on how to innovate and energize ICTs in order to best assist all nations to achieve the SDGs by 2030.