Sustainable Development in the Immediate Region of Açailândia (MA): Analysis of Indicators According to the 2030 Agenda (UN)

• Grant number: 22/14491-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: April 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Lindon Fonseca Matias
• Grantee: Thiago de Azevedo Cunha
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências (IG). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The second half of the 20th century was marked by the rise of concerns and questions related to the interaction between society and the environment, which culminated in the proposal of the 2030 Agenda, made by the UN in 2015, with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) being proposed as an attempt to operationalize what was presented and guide the 193 nations involved. For its success, the incorporation of these objectives in municipal and state planning is essential, however, in Brazil, adherence to the SDGs in government actions is still not very effective. Three aspects are necessary for their implementation to be effective: the involvement of sustainability dimensions in the process, population participation and adaptation to the local reality, but the mobilizations verified fail to involve this triad. Based on this, this master's project aims to evaluate the process of incorporating the SDGs into socio-environmental planning, through the elaboration of a sustainability index, which incorporates the three aspects mentioned as essential for the effectiveness of this process. For this, the index indicators will be segmented according to three dimensions of sustainability (Environmental, Economic and Social), being proposed according to the normalization, aggregation and weighting steps established by the Sustainable Cities Program index (2021). Data from Citizen Science virtual platforms will be incorporated, so that the perspective of the population is evidenced, and the index will be spatialized, with the contribution of a Geographic Information System (GIS), enabling the analysis of the spatial distribution of sustainability dimensions. These steps will be applied in the immediate region of Açailândia, area of the Maranhão States Amazon, whose spatial changes are an expression of the concerns that motivated the 2030 Agenda. Therefore, this project aims to contribute so that planning actions can use this index in the policy-making process oriented to the SDGs, enabling the effectiveness of the 2030 Agenda goals and collaborating for the sustainable development of the immediate region of Açailândia.