The FPB’s studies cover 11 main themes: Energy, Environmental economic accounts and analyses, International economy, Labour market, Macroeconomic forecasts and analyses, Public finances, Sectoral accounts and analyses, Social protection, demography and prospective studies, Structural studies, Sustainable development, Transport.
Education is crucial for the development of society. It is also a key element for our economy. This article examines the educational level of pupils in Belgium. While it had already been falling in recent years, this level has fallen further following the Covid-19 pandemic. Without catching up, the long-term economic cost of this decline in educational attainment would be considerable.
This publication is the new version of the report on indicators complementary to GDP, published annually from 2016 to 2021. This renewed report on sustainable development indicators presents a larger number of indicators, covering the period from 1990 to 2020, depending on the availability of the data. In addition, it includes a review of the progress of these indicators towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015. It proposes a specific analysis of the well-being of the population 'Here and now' for Belgium in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and presents the four composite indicators to measure the sustainability of well-being (dimension 'Later'). This set will be completed in the forthcoming updates by composite indicators for the third and last dimension of sustainable development 'Elsewhere'.
What progress has Belgium made towards sustainable development? The assessment of 51 indicators for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN shows that on current trends, few SDGs will be achieved by 2030. New policies will therefore be needed to achieve all these goals. These conclusions remain unchanged from those drawn in the ten assessments conducted since 2005.
The Task Force on Sustainable Development (TFSD) of the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB) acts since 1998 under the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, of which it is one of the actors. Its missions include reporting on the evaluation of sustainable development policies and proposing long-term foresight scenarios.
A development is sustainable if it enables the needs of the current generation to be met equitably without compromising the satisfaction of the needs of future generations.
A sustainable development that addresses social, environmental and institutional problems on a systemic basis is guided by the following five cross-cutting principles:
These five principles were adopted in 1992 by the international community at the Rio Conference and the sustainable development concept is best known mainly thanks to three world conferences organised by the United Nations :
The overarching goals of a sustainable development that were adopted in 1992/2002 and confirmed in 2012 (Rio +20) are :
To contribute to the follow-up of the commitments made in this framework, the FPB regularly publishes the Federal report on sustainable development in accordance with the Law of 5 May 1997 regarding the coordination of the federal policy on sustainable development. The law also introduced the Federal plan for sustainable development.
Federal Planning Bureau