FIN60003 - Business Report on UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

This report investigates the importance of the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to participating countries. Data, secondary in nature, concerning the vision 2030 by the United Nations participating countries was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics in Excel with a random sample of 100 countries. The analysis revealed that access to advanced education was higher in European countries compared to African countries. There was no significant difference in environmental quality and personal safety between American, European, and Asian countries. The report concludes that eradicating corruption is crucial for prosperity and achieving the 2030 UN sustainable development goals due to its impact on press freedom.

Executive summary
The purpose of this report was to investigate the importance of 2030 United Nation Sustainable
Development Goals to the participating countries. The results from this report was analyzed
using excel where data was entered organized and a sample of 100 samples randomly selected.
The data used in this report was secondary data concerning the vision 2030 by the United
Nations participating countries. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the analysis
and interpretation of data to draw conclusion. From the tested hypothesis, the level of access to
advanced education was higher among the European countries than the African countries where
environmental quality and personal safety showed no significant difference between American
countries against European and Asian countries. It was then concluded that for prosperity and
development towards realization of 2030 United Nations sustainable development goals,
corruption had to be fully eradicated from the countries since it had great effect on press freedom
index.

Introduction
Convergence of the countries under the umbrella of the United Nations directed the countries to
adopt a set of goals which were intended to fight poverty and ensure prosperity for almost all the
countries in the world as a deal of new sustainable development. Targets were set for each of the
participating countries to be achieved by the end of 2030 (Griggs et al., 2013). Among the
objectives to achieve by the next coming years were appropriate course of action towards the
climate change, affordable and clean energy, keeping forests at 30% on the earth’s surface
(Sachs, 2012). The purpose of this report was to investigate the importance of 2030 United
Nation Sustainable Development Goals to the participating countries. This will be fully
discussed in the later section of this report as from the results. This report will give the analysis
and results concerning the united nation 2030 sustainable development in the participating
countries where the effects and importance will be highlighted in the analysis part. Descriptive
and inferential statistics will be used to describe some of the sustainable developments and draw
conclusion from the provided data. The data used in this report was secondary data and consisted
of eight variable and 100 cases as in the appendices.
Analysis
The data that was randomly selected for 100 countries were represented in tables and graphs as
they will be discussed below;
Descriptive statistics
Table 1: Summary Statistics
Summar
y
statistics
Access to
improved
sanitation
Traffic
deaths
Press
freedom
Greenhouse
gas emission
Corruption Women’s
average
years in
school
Mean 63.25175 20.465 34.8698 691.1238 38.74 8.7906
Mode 100 24.1 57.89 26 13.29
Std.
deviation
31.00784 9.740194 15.20993 1109.183 16.25841 4.083582
Range 89.11636 69.9 75.03 10863.47 76 14.7
Median 73.6071 20.95 30.72 519.8677 35 9.175
1st
quartile
33.7561757 13.675 27.0625 333 28 5.4
3rd
quartile
93.15158583 26.4 41.95 766 45 12
IQR 59.39541013 12.725 14.8875 433 17 6.9
From the used sample of 100 countries, access to improved sanitation under water and sanitation
category was analyzed and had the mean of 63.25. the mode of access to improved sanitation
was 100, standard deviation of 31.008 with the difference between maximum and minimum
being 989.12 and the difference between the value in the 25th position and that in 75th position
being 59.4. The number of traffic deaths from the selected 100 countries had the mean of 20.465

with highly occurring value of 24.1 and the standard deviation of 9.74. On the same, the
difference between highest numbers of the traffic deaths recorded in the countries was 69.9 and
the interquartile range of 12.73. Press freedom was seen to having mean of 34.87 with 57.89
times occurrence of the press freedom with the standard deviation of 15.21 and the range and
interquartile range of 75.03 and 14.89 respectively. Greenhouse gas emission, corruption and
women’s average years in school had the means of 691.12, 38.74 and 8.79 respectively. They as
well had the standard deviation and interquartile range of 1109.18, 16.26, 4.08 and 433, 17 and
17 respectively.
Figure 1
10 to 20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-100
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Histogram for access to improved
sanitation
class
Percentage Frequency
Sanitation is one of the goals set by the United Nations in the sustainable development goals by
2030. Currently, the countries’ access to improved sanitation for between 10 to 20 times was
13%, 21-30 times was 9%, 31-40 was 7%, 41-50 was 9%, 51-60 was 4%, 61-70 was 7%, 71-80
was 7%, 81-90 was 15% and 91-100 was 29%. Figure 1 above shows level of access to improved
sanitation in the sampled countries that are participants in the United Nations development goals
that need to be improved by 2030.

Figure 2
1
5
9
13
17
21
25
29
33
37
41
45
49
53
57
61
65
69
73
77
81
85
89
93
97
0.00
2000.00
4000.00
6000.00
8000.00
10000.00
12000.00
Greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emission is one of the aspects that lead to climate change and global warming
that needs to be dealt with in order to improve environmental quality. As in the graph above the
greenhouse gas emission is still on the rise in most of the countries.
Figure 3
AFRICA AMERICA ASIA EUROPE
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
Bar graph
Sum of Traffic deaths
Sum of Press Freedom Index
Sum of Corruption

The total number of traffic deaths in African countries in the sample was between 1200-1400
individuals while that of the American countries was in the range of 200-400, Asian countries
200-400 and in European countries the number of traffic deaths was below 200 individuals. The
press freedom index was the highest in the African countries in the range of 1600-1800 as
compared to other continent countries which recorded (600-800, 800-1000 and 200-400) for the
respective continents America, Asia and Europe. Another aspect that was under the goals of
United Nations was to reduce the level of corruption across the countries in the world. From the
data, the level of corruption is highest in African countries followed closely by American
countries and least in the European countries
Confidence interval
United nations have advocated for availability of the sustainable management of water,
sanitation and good hygiene come 2030 from the time meeting was convened among the united
nations (Hajer et al., 2015; Norheim et al., 2015) . It was ensured that come 2030 there should be
universal and equitability of access to affordable and safe drinking water for all (Buse and
Hawkes, 2015). This was aimed to be achieved by the United Nations through reducing the level
of pollution like ensuring that the level of hazardous chemical discharged to the water sources is
at the minimum achievable level or none at all (Hou and Al-Tabbaa, 2014). In response to that,
this report looked at the current general mean and the range for which the countries in the United
Nations have access to improved sanitation facilities. From the sampled data, the range was
found to be (66.3525 – 60.151). We were 95 confident that all the United Nations level accessing
the improved sanitation facilities was in the aforementioned range. The united nations
sustainable goals is supposed to be working harder to make the range at higher levels if all the
hazardous chemicals were reduced and not discharged to the water sources and improvise some
good means of disposing them off after use.
Education is one of the key agendas that are prioritized by any given country. Heavy weight is
given to education since it contribute much to the knowledge economy which is fundamental in
the financial economic development of the countries (Kabir, 2016). By 2015, the United Nations
ensured that there was great development of universal completion of primary education around
the world. The case was identified different to the disabled which drew much attention so that
they could as well have equal access to quality education (Croft, 2013). Most of the children
estimated at 250 million had no basic skills after school and even those who had completed up to
their fourth grades (Fägerlind and Saha, 2016). Quality of education, inclusion and equity in
education is one of the key elements that could be used to measure the progress towards
achieving the vision 2030 as in the goals of the untied nations. In regards to this, the women’s
average years in school was used to test for the current quality education in the United Nations.
As a result, the range for which the women’s average years would fall was calculated out of
which there was 95% confidence level that the population average years for which women would
stay in school would fall in (9.199 – 8.382). In order for the United Nations to meet the vision
2030 access to advanced education, all the aspects that could be hindering the students’
enrolment in school for both genders be eradicated. These factors could be conflicts which could
lead to trauma in the children thus affecting their cognitive development and encourage learning
in safe environments (Stein, Leventhal and Trabasso, 2013). All these can be achieved by

ensuring care and education irrespective of sex in support of equity learning as an essential
strategy.
Hypothesis testing
Hypothesis 1
H0: The level of access to education is not higher among European countries than the African
countries
H1: The level of access to education is higher among the European countries than the African
countries
Most of the African countries have access to advanced education interrupted with due to some of
their cultural practices, level of poverty thus unable to afford advanced education and even basic
formal education. Developed countries have their citizens’ education somewhat well planned for
and catered for making it easier for their citizens to have access to advanced education. Least
developed countries have problems with access to advanced education which lead to knowledge
gap and face the dire consequences of social and economic development (Dabla-Norris et al.,
2015). It is therefore important to eliminate or reduce the barriers that could affect the
development of skills, technical and vocational education and some formal training. All these
skills should be driven right from secondary schools through to tertiary level of education such
as the colleges and universities. This will ensure long lasting opportunities for both youths and
adults in respect to knowledge and economic development towards the realization of vision 2030
(Low, 2012). Most of the European countries being developed and most of African countries
falling under developing countries, it is therefore believed that the level of access to advanced
education in European countries is higher compared to the African countries. This therefore led
to the test of the following hypothesis;
For the test of the above stated hypotheses, t-test was used. The significance level (0.05) was
used to check for whether or not to the null hypothesis should be sustained. Since the P-value
(2.21E-14) was less than the significance level (0.05), we reject the null hypothesis in favor of
the alternative hypothesis and conclude that the level of access to education is higher among the
European countries than the African countries.
Hypothesis 2
H0: There is no difference of personal safety between Asian Countries and American countries
H1: There is a difference of personal safety between Asian countries and the American countries
Manpower is one of the fundamental requirements for the economic growth. The need to develop
the economy should be based honing the skills and knowledge of the available manpower and
even training some more to fill the gap left by the retired ones (Craglia et al., 2012). Personal
safety is therefore one of the key requirements to avoid the unnecessary loss of the available
skilled manpower. In response to this from the data, the traffic death variable was used to test for
the difference of personal safety between Asian countries and the American countries. To have
the full picture and support of the personal safety between the two continent countries,
hypothesis was tested.

In the test of the hypothesis, t-test was used to check for the difference. P-value (0.8751) which
is greater than the significance level (0.05) thus we failed to reject the null hypothesis and
conclude that there was no significant difference of personal safety between Asian countries and
the American countries.
Hypothesis 3
H0: There is no difference in terms of environmental quality between European and American
countries
H1: There is a difference in terms of environmental quality between European and American
countries
The quality of environment is currently a major concern to all the United Nations. Several
suggestions have been brought with the idea of reducing the environmental pollution that lead to
global warming. This is majorly focused in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide into the air. In
regards to that, greenhouse gas emission was used in the hypothesis test for the difference
between European and American countries in terms of environmental quality.
From the test result, p-value (0.2489) which was greater than the significance p-value (0.05)
hence we failed to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there was no significance
difference in terms of environmental quality between European and American countries.
Correlation and regression
Figure 4
0.00 2000.00 4000.00 6000.00 8000.00 10000.00 12000.00
0.00
20.00
40.00
60.00
80.00
100.00
120.00 f(x) = 0.0101161605266254 x + 56.3301498401806
R² = 0.130132591284326
Access to improved sanitation facilities vs greenhouse
gas emission

Existence of correlation was tested between the environmental quality (greenhouse gas emission)
and the water and sanitation category (access to improved sanitation facilities. the dependent
variable from the test was the access to improved sanitation and the independent variable that
was resulting to effect was greenhouse gas emission. From the scatter plot, there was a relatively
weak positive correlation with the scatter plot values concentrated around the line fit by 13.01%.
That means that greenhouse gas emission would result to slight effect on access to improved
sanitation facilities.
The proposed linear model from the relationship between the two variables was
y=a+bx
Where y is dependent variable (access to improved sanitation facilities), a is the constant or the
y-intercept, b the coefficient of the dependent variable and x is greenhouse gas emission
(independent variable).
Access to improved sanitation facilities = 56.33015 + 0.010116greenhouse gas emission
From the above model, the correlation was linear.
0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 70.00 80.00 90.00
0.00
10.00
20.00
30.00
40.00
50.00
60.00
70.00
80.00
90.00
100.00
f(x) = 1.06014661503007 x + 1.77289956322455
R² = 0.983627279921527
Corruption against Press freedom
From the scatter plot diagram, the plots lie on almost straight line with the r-squared value being
98.36% showing that the plots between the two variables were closely packed around the line of
best fit. Consequently, there existed a strong positive correlation (near perfect positive
correlation) between press freedom and corruption showing that corrupting was resulting to a
great effect on the press freedom index.

Another model was developed to test for the correlation between access to information and
communication and personal freedom and choice where the resulting variables used were press
freedom index (dependent variable) and corruption (independent variable). The resulting model
will be;
Press freedom index = -1.07402 + 0.927822 corruption
As a result therefore, the resulting equation was linear.
Conclusion and limitations
In can therefore be concluded from the report that the traffic deaths, press freedom index and
corruption was highest in African countries closely followed by the American countries and
lowest in European countries. Clean water and quality education are some of the UN sustainable
development goals and the world can be made better by 2030 by eradicating corruption and other
factors that could affect the realization of goals. From the hypotheses tested, no difference of
personal safety was observed between Asian countries and American countries implying that the
level of safety in both continents was almost at per. Further it can be concluded that
environmental quality in American countries and European countries had no difference but the
European countries showed to have had higher level of access to advanced education than the
African countries. Additionally, corruption had greater effects on the press freedom index since
they showed almost perfect positive correlation.
Some of the limitations from this report is that the follow up have not been shown by the United
Nations towards the realization of the 2030 goals by the participating countries. Further, it has
not been shown how the levels of education can be improved so that the developing countries
can experience same quality education as the developed countries.

Reference
Buse, K. and Hawkes, S., 2015. Health in the sustainable development goals: ready for a
paradigm shift?. Globalization and health, 11(1), p.13.
Craglia, M., de Bie, K., Jackson, D., Pesaresi, M., Remetey-Fülöpp, G., Wang, C., Annoni, A.,
Bian, L., Campbell, F., Ehlers, M. and van Genderen, J., 2012. Digital Earth 2020: towards the
vision for the next decade. International Journal of Digital Earth, 5(1), pp.4-21.
Croft, A., 2013. Promoting access to education for disabled children in low-income countries:
Do we need to know how many disabled children there are?. International Journal of
Educational Development, 33(3), pp.233-243.
Dabla-Norris, M.E., Kochhar, M.K., Suphaphiphat, M.N., Ricka, M.F. and Tsounta, E.,
2015. Causes and consequences of income inequality: A global perspective. International
Monetary Fund.
Fägerlind, I. and Saha, L.J., 2016. Education and national development: A comparative
perspective. Elsevier.
Griggs, D., Stafford-Smith, M., Gaffney, O., Rockström, J., Öhman, M.C., Shyamsundar, P.,
Steffen, W., Glaser, G., Kanie, N. and Noble, I., 2013. Policy: Sustainable development goals for
people and planet. Nature, 495(7441), p.305.
Hajer, M., Nilsson, M., Raworth, K., Bakker, P., Berkhout, F., de Boer, Y., Rockström, J.,
Ludwig, K. and Kok, M., 2015. Beyond cockpit-ism: Four insights to enhance the transformative
potential of the sustainable development goals. Sustainability, 7(2), pp.1651-1660.
Hou, D. and Al-Tabbaa, A., 2014. Sustainability: a new imperative in contaminated land
remediation. Environmental Science & Policy, 39, pp.25-34.
Kabir, N., 2016. Women’s economic empowerment and inclusive growth: labour markets and
enterprise development. School of Oriental and African Studies, UK.
Low, L., 2012. Abu Dhabi's Vision 2030: An Ongoing Journey of Economic Development. World
Scientific.
Norheim, O.F., Jha, P., Admasu, K., Godal, T., Hum, R.J., Kruk, M.E., Gómez-Dantés, O.,
Mathers, C.D., Pan, H., Sepúlveda, J. and Suraweera, W., 2015. Avoiding 40% of the premature
deaths in each country, 2010–30: review of national mortality trends to help quantify the UN
Sustainable Development Goal for health. The Lancet, 385(9964), pp.239-252.
Sachs, J.D., 2012. From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals. The
Lancet, 379(9832), pp.2206-2211.
Stein, N.L., Leventhal, B. and Trabasso, T.R., 2013. The influence of positive and negative
affect on cognitive organization: Some implications for development. In Psychological and
biological approaches to emotion (pp. 93-112). Psychology Press.

Appendices
category 2 variable CI category 12 variable CI
Access to improved sanitation
facilities Women's average years in school
Mean 63.2517535 Mean 8.7906
Standard Error 3.100783507 Standard Error
0.40835815
2
Median 73.60709575 Median 9.175
Mode 100 Mode 13.29
Standard Deviation 31.00783507
Standard
Deviation
4.08358151
9
Sample Variance 961.4858358 Sample Variance
16.6756380
2
Kurtosis -1.444326145 Kurtosis
-
1.10371402
2
Skewness -0.330286073 Skewness
-
0.10147230
1
Range 89.1163606 Range 14.7
Minimum 10.8836394 Minimum 0.98
Maximum 100 Maximum 15.68
Sum 6325.17535 Sum 879.06
Count 100 Count 100
upper limit 66.35253701 upper limit
9.19895815
2
lower limit 60.15096999 lower limit
8.38224184
8
Test of hypothesis for access to advanced education
t-Test: Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variances
African Europe
Mean
5.60739
1
13.6827
3
Variance 9.0931
2.17786
2
Observations 46 11
Hypothesized Mean Difference 0
df 33
t Stat -12.838