World Development Indicators will report on progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals, as it did with the Millennium Development Goals. The Sustainable Development Goals cover a broader range
of issues, and this edition expands coverage in the World view section. For each of the 17 goals, key indicators have been selected to identify important trends and challenges and elicit discussion on measurement issues. An accompanying set of dashboards, showing trends by country, region, and income level, are available at http://data.worldbank.org/sdgs. World Development Indicators is the World Bank’s premier compilation of cross-country comparable data on development. The database contains more than 1,300 time series indicators for 214 economies and more than 30 country groups, with data for many indicators going back more than 50 years.
The 2016 edition of World Development Indicators offers a condensed presentation of the principal indicators,
arranged in their traditional sections, along with regional and topical highlights and maps.
Minimizing desertification and land degradation.(page32-33). The loss of potential and existing agricultural land to drought, floods, and land degradation affects vast swathes of the world’s poor, many of whom depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and nourishment. Restoring land and soil (target 15.3) helps keep land degradation
in check. Soil degradation affects 52 percent of agricultural land, and arable land is being lost at 30–35 times its historical rate. Drought and desertification have led to losses of 12 million hectares,2 on which 20 million tons of grain could have been grown, and have further impoverished already vulnerable communities.
Degradation in the drylands— zones naturally predisposed to high aridity and water scarcity— is causing the desertification of 3.6 billion hectares.