Global Sustainable Development Report 2014 (GSDR 2014)

The Prototype Global Sustainable Development Report illustrates a range of potential content, alternative approaches, and various ways of participation, in order to support Member States' deliberation on the scope and methodology of future editions of the Report.

It maps sustainable development assessments and related processes and highlights emerging issues identified by scientists; assesses sustainable development progress; tells the “stories” of future pathways toward sustainable development based on the literature and discusses investment and technology needs; assesses various approaches to measuring sustainable development progress; identifies lessons learnt from national, regional and global case studies of the climate-land-energy-water-development nexus; presents illustrative science digests for decision-makers; and summarizes various views of Member States and others on the process, methodology and scope of future reports.

All Member States, political groups and all 53 UN organizations of ECESA-Plus were invited to make proposals on the scope and methodology of a global sustainable development report, inter alia, through a questionnaire. The views expressed in these inputs agree on most key elements relating to scope and methodology of the Report. Reflecting these views, the Secretary-General in his report E/2014/87 of June 2014 proposed 3 options:

• Option 1: Conventional UN flagship publication model
• Option 2: Multi-stakeholder, multi-level approach
• Option 3: Intergovernmental Panel on Sustainable Development

At the second meeting of the HLPF, overwhelming preference was expressed for the second option: a multi-stakeholder, multi-level approach to preparing future reports. The Ministerial Declaration of the HLPF reconfirmed the need for and the mandate to prepare the GSDR.