Accelerating SDG Progress in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Through Peer Learning

This paper utilizes policy learning from successful peer countries to identify policy ideas that could accelerate the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using the nearest neighbor approach designed by Hamilton and Kuncic (2021) and the data from the Sustainable Development Report (Sachs 2021), we collated the significant policies of all of the KSA’s top 5 nearest neighbor countries relevant for each SDG. We then synthesized these policies by the nearest neighbors into SDG by SDG recommendations for the KSA based on a multi-criteria ranking algorithm that evaluates the cost and timeframe of each policy as well as the potential for improvement corresponding to the KSA. These results are also framed in the KSA’s national context and existing policies. Our research provides an actionable and widely applicable model of peer learning which identifies the best national practices for the acceleration of the SDG achievement.