ABSTRACT
The Independent Group of Scientists (IGS) is made up of 15 experts from different scientific disciplines and geographical backgrounds, appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to draft the Global Sustainable Development Report. The creation of the IGS aims to strengthen the science-policy interface in discussions on sustainable development and to provide decision-makers with evidence-based guidance on the state of global sustainable development and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To achieve its mission, the IGS synthesizes information and assessments from a wide range of sources, including scientific literature, to produce a comprehensive report that addresses pressing global issues related to sustainable development. The IGS faces several challenges including the difficulty to tackle complex global inequalities with context-specific research, the lack of political will to implement the necessary transformations, the siloed nature of the scientific community and the under-funded scientific systems in low- and middle-income countries.
