Laos Sustainable Development Goals
For this blog, I've chosen five of the UN's sustainable development goals to look at how well Laos is doing at progressing towards those goals. The first I'll look at is Goal 3, Good Health and Well-Being. In this category, I believe Laos is demonstrating significant progress. Data from World Bank shows Laos had an average life expectancy of about 43 in 1960, but since then has been consistently on the rise and by 2017 had reached 67 [1]. Although there is certainly space for improvement, this shows they are quite quickly making large strides at improving public health. Next is Goal 7, Affordable and Clean Energy. I read a report related to doing business as a small or medium company in Laos, and one of the most-often cited issues is power outages [2]. This is concerning both because the report went on to specify 82% of employment in the nation comes from these small businesses, and also because it implies energy access is similarly scarce for everyone else.