International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks.

2018, 6(2): 18-24

DOI: 10.17149/ijgp.j.issn.2577.4441.2018.02.002

© 2018 Darswin Publishing House

A Preliminary Study on Target 11.4 for UN

Sustainable Development Goals
Xinyuan Wang1,2*, Hongge Ren1, Pu Wang1, Ruixia Yang1,2, Lei Luo1,2, Fu-
long Cheng1,2
1
Key Laboratory of Digital Earth, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing 100094.
2
International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage under the Auspices of
UNESCO, Beijing, 100094.

Abstract: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have 17 Goals,
169 Targets and 232 Indicators. The fourth specific target of SDG11 (Target 11.4) is "
Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage".
Target 11.4 identifies the important role of conservation and preservation of natural and
cultural heritage for sustainable development. World heritage exists in different coun-
tries and regions with different cultural backgrounds and development levels. Because
of the complexity of the system, the evaluation method based on objective system
becomes a difficult problem. The in-depth interpretation of the target system, reliable
data and measurement are essential for transforming SDGs into practical tools for
solving problems. Based on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), authenticity and
integrity requirements of world heritage, this paper puts forward the scientific concep-
tion of SDG11.4 index decomposition and advocates the quantitative method of indi-
cators. This paper suggests that the indicator given by Target 11.4 for the SDGs should
be summarized as 11.4.1 "Increasing investment in protecting and defending the
world’s cultural and natural heritage". Two additional indicators are added, one is
11.4.2 "Increase investment in science and technology to protect and safeguard the
world’s cultural and natural heritage", the other is 11.4.3 "Increase education and pub-
licity to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage". This can fully
reflect the role of education, science and culture in "further efforts to protect and sa-
feguard world cultural and natural heritage".

Keywords: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); World Heritage; Evaluation; Quantification

1 Research Background
In 1972, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) adopted the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Nat-
ural Heritage (hereinafter referred to as the Convention) at its 17th General Confe-
rence held in Paris. The Convention aims at recognizing, protecting, preserving, dis-

Author: Xinyuan Wang, Key Laboratory of Digital Earth, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094.
E-mail: wangxy@radi.ac.cn.

Copyright © 2018 Beijing Normal University

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
.
 Xinyuan Wang, et al.: A Preliminary Study on Target 11.4 for UN Sustainable … 19

playing and passing on from generation to generation the cultural and natural heritage
of outstanding universal value (UNESCO, 1972). The Convention is the most intelli-
gent call of mankind in the 20th century. It has received a positive response from all
over the world. At present, 195 countries and regions are contracting members. The
Convention is of great significance to the promotion of the outstanding universal val-
ue of the World Heritage and the protection of its authenticity and integrity. Since the
adoption of the Convention in 1972, the international community has fully accepted
the concept of "Sustainable Development". Protecting and preserving natural and
cultural heritage is a great contribution to sustainable development.
On September 25, 2015, at the UN Summit on Sustainable Development, 193
Member States formally adopted The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
which defines 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 sub-goals for the
next 15 years. The content involves three levels of sustainable development for so-
ciety, economy and environment (UN, 2015). Sustainable development is the result of
human reflection on the process of industrial civilization. It is a new concept of de-
velopment, morality and civilization. It is a development theory and strategy based on
the protection of the natural resources and environment, under the condition of sti-
mulating economic development, aiming at improving the quality of human life. It
involves many aspects, such as nature, environment, society, economy, science and
technology, politics and so on. It requires that development should be coordinated and
adapted with resources, environment and population.
The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) led the global framework of the
sustainable development goals, including 17 SDGs and 169 Targets. Based on the
work of the Inter-agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), 232 spe-
cific indicators have been formulated (UNSD 2018). IAEG-SDGs further divide these
indicators into three levels according to the consistency of quantitative criteria and
calculation methods of indicators and the difficulty of data acquisition (Sachs et al.,
2016). Among the 17 SDGs, Goal 11 is “Make cities and human settlements inclusive,
safe, resilient and sustainable”. The goal includes seven direct targets and three indi-
rect targets. Target 11.4 puts forward "Further efforts to protect and defend the world
cultural and natural heritage", which includes one indicator, belonging to Tier III.
There is still no data and no method (IAEG-SDGs, 2018).
With the support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Net-
work (SDSN), the Bertelsmann Foundation has released SDGs Index for 34 countries
of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The SDGs
Index was mainly used to track the progress of implementing SDGs in 34 OECD
countries in a simplified way and to identify development issues that need to be ad-
dressed as a priority (Kroll, 2015). In addition, the UK Overseas Development Insti-
tute (ODI) has also done valuable work, providing a scorecard to evaluate sustainable
development goals, reflecting the development trend of SDG core dimensions in dif-
ferent regions, and proposing areas to be improved and improved urgently (Nicolai et
al., 2016). Through the scorecard, it is found that conventional strategies and meas-
ures cannot achieve most of the goals of SDGs. The scorecard of ODI mainly depends
on the aggregation of regional indicators, so some conclusions are not applicable to
the national level. In 2017, SDSN and the Bertelsmann Foundation jointly provided
SDGs indices and indicators based on the national level, identified priority areas for
each country and priority areas for development. SDGs Index and indicator board
20 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GEOHERITAGE AND PARKS

mainly focus on the situation of each country, cannot solve the problem of unbalanced
development among regions, there are many indicators spillover effect has not been
considered. As pointed out by the Statistical Commission of the Economic and Social
Council at its forty-seventh session on the data and indicators of the Agenda for Sus-
tainable Development 2030: In some cases, the proposed indicators do not cover all
aspects of a particular goal and its specific objectives. It is expected that the methods
will be further refined with a view to continually improving indicators and enhancing
data collection to remedy these shortcomings (UN E/CN, 2016).
The index system and quantification method of Target 11.4 were discussed in this
paper. The purpose is to analyze the connotation of Target 11.4, establish a decompo-
sition system of the SDG 11, and to provide a set of appropriate and convenient mea-
surement methods for different countries and regions. so as to better understand the
status of global heritage resources and better protect heritage.

2 Decomposition System for Target 11.4

Generally, there are three levels from Goals to Targets and then to Indicators. Target
11.4 is relatively independent from Goal 11 of the Sustainable Development Goals. To
address this problem, it is recommended that Target 11.4 has been divided into 3 In-
dicators. And every Indicator is divided into several Sub-Indicators to quantify
"Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage".
Then the goal system is divided into four levels by Goal - Target - Indicator -
Sub-Indicator.
Goal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Target 11.4 Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage

Indicator 11.4.1 Indicator 11.4.2 Indicator 11.4.3

Increase capital in- Increase scientific and Intensify education and
vestment technological input publicity

Sub-In Sub-In Sub-In Sub-In Sub-In Sub-In Sub-In Sub-In

dicator dicator dicator dicator dicator dicator dicator dicator
1-1[SI- 1-2[SI- 1-3[SI- 2-1[SI- 2-2[SI- 2-3[SI- 3-1[SI- 3-2[SI-
1-1] 1-2] 1-3] 2-1] 2-2] 2-3] 3-1] 3-2]

Figure 1 The target decomposition diagram.

UN proposed "Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and
natural heritage" as Target 11.4. So far, an indicator has given, “Total expenditure
(public and private) per capita spent on the preservation, protection and conservation
of all cultural and natural heritage, by type of heritage (cultural, natural, mixed and
World Heritage Centre designation), level of government (national, regional and lo-
cal/municipal), type of expenditure (operating expenditure/investment) and type of
private funding (donations in kind, private non-profit sector and sponsorship)". Ac-
cording to the relevant terms and contents of the Convention, the given indicator does
not fully meet the responsibility of Target 11.4. Therefore, the given indicator can be
 Xinyuan Wang, et al.: A Preliminary Study on Target 11.4 for UN Sustainable … 21

summarized as 11.4.1 "increase capital investment to protect the world's cultural and
natural heritage". In addition, two additional indicators are added. One is 11.4.2 "In-
crease investment in science and technology to protect and safeguard the world cul-
tural and natural heritage", the other is 11.4.3 "Increase education and publicity to
protect and safeguard the world cultural and natural heritage". Figure 1 shows the
target decomposition diagram.

3 The connotation interpretation and the computational method of

Indicator 11.4.1
3.1 The connotation interpretation
Indicator 11.4.1 is "Increase capital investment to protect and safeguard the world
cultural and natural heritage". And the Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group
on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators(2018) also points out that "Total ex-
penditure (public and private) per capita spent on the preservation, protection and
conservation of all cultural and natural heritage, by type of heritage (cultural, natural,
mixed and World Heritage Centre designation), level of government (national, re-
gional and local/municipal), type of expenditure (operating expenditure/investment)
and type of private funding (donations in kind, private non-profit sector and sponsor-
ship). "
As seen above, heritage types can be divided into cultural, natural, mixed and
World Heritage Centre designation. In terms of funds which can be divided into two
categories: source and expenditure. The source of funding includes two types: one is
the level of government (national, regional and local/municipal), and the other is the
type of private funding (donations in kind, private non-profit sector and sponsorship).
The expenditure of funding includes operating expenditure and investment.
The item of expenditure should consider the total expenditure (public and private),
total operating expenditure, total investment expenditure and total expenditure per
capita (public and private). In addition to Investment in level of government (national,
regional and local/municipal), it is necessary to consider the operation income from
heritage sites, such as tourism and other business activities. Figure 2 shows the de-
composition diagram of Indicator 11.4.1.
3.2 Quantitative Methods
"Total per capita expenditure (public and private) spent on the preservation, protec-
tion and conservation of all cultural and natural heritages" has been required to be
calculated according to the Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustain-
able Development Goal Indicators (2018).
The amount of total per capita expenditure in a country is at least related to the
following factors:
22 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GEOHERITAGE AND PARKS

Indicator 11.4.1 Increase capital investment to protect and safeguard the

world cultural and natural heritage

[SI-1-2]Tot
[SI-1-1]Tot [SI-1-3]Tot
al expendi- [SI-1-4]Uni
al income al expend-
ture (public t area ex- [SI-1-5]…
(public and iture (pub-
and private) penditure
private) lic and
per capita
private)
spent

Figure 2 The decomposition diagram of Indicator 11.4.1

(1) the amount of all the cultural and natural heritage in the country;
(2) the amount of money invested in each cultural and natural heritage;
(3) the number of people in the country.
Therefore, the following aspects should be considered in this indicator:
(1) "Total per capita expenditure" does not reflect whether the country " Strengthen
efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage " or not. Al-
though there is an upward trend in per capita expenditure in time series, it is not easy
to make horizontal comparisons between countries.
(2) Need to refine the investment of each heritage.
(3) It is necessary to assign and weigh different types of expenditure according to
the local conditions of different countries, which also reflects the country-based pro-
gram.
(4) Measuring capital input or expenditure can also be calculated from the perspec-
tive of protected areas. It can be expressed by dividing capital by protected area.
Taking Huangshan Mountain as an example, the research group demonstrated the
feasibility of the index system and evaluation method of indicator 11.4.1.
Huangshan Mountain was listed on the World Heritage List as the 17th dual herit-
age project, at the 14th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, held in
Banff, Canada, in December 1990 (Fang, 2004). In 2004, Huangshan was selected as
Global Geopark (Han, Wu, Tian, Li & Jiang, 2016). Huangshan was also approved as
China's 34th World Biosphere Reserve in 2018 (Huangshan Management Committee,
2018). As a heritage site in multiple UNESCO lists, Huangshan is an ideal test site for
SDGs.
In collaboration with the Huangshan Management Committee, the research group
sorted out the subjects of revenue and expenditure of funds for the mixed heritage
sites of Huangshan from 1990 to 2017, and proposed index system and evaluation
method of the indicator 11.4.1. For Huangshan World Cultural and Natural Heritage
Site, we quantified "increasing capital investment in protecting natural and cultural
heritage" from two aspects of source and expenditure when evaluating the indicator
11.4.1. It makes up for the limitation that the original index only reflects the indicator
from the total per capita expenditure. Source can be divided into two categories, the
one is national input and the other is miscellaneous revenues. The sum of the two is
total income. Expenditure is divided into business expenditure and investment ex-
penditure. Add the two together as total expenditure. Then, experts score and assign
weights for each sub-indicators as the basis of evaluation. Generally speaking, the
 Xinyuan Wang, et al.: A Preliminary Study on Target 11.4 for UN Sustainable … 23

investment of funds can reflect the protection of Huangshan's increasing efforts to

some extent. But it cannot completely and accurately reflect the degree of such efforts
and the benefits it produces. The specific content will be discussed in another article.

4 Conclusion and expectation

It is undeniable that the SDGs are very complex agendas for different countries and
regions. As far as Target 11.4 for SDG is concerned, changes and innovations are
needed in the future for sustainable heritage protection. World Heritage is faced with
such problems as the growing imbalance between development and conservation, ur-
ban expansion and environmental degradation. There is an urgent need for countries
to take action to monitor sustainable development goals for a long time, assess
progress in implementation, identify problems and ensure sustainable development of
the World Heritage Site on the right path. In this paper, the decomposition system of
Target 11.4 and the evaluation method of indicator 11.4.1 are discussed. Further ef-
forts are needed to improve indicator 11.4.2 and 11.4.3.
Indicator 11.4.1 elaborates on increasing capital investment to protect and defend
heritage. Indicator 11.4.2 is elaborated from the perspective of strengthening the pro-
tection of natural and cultural heritage by science and technology. Although some of
the investment in science and technology may be reflected in the form of funds in the
indicator 11.4.1, it mainly emphasizes the investment in science and technology re-
lated to management in indicator 11.4.2. Especially on the basis of relevant scientific
and technological requirements, we select indicators from UNESCO's management
content which has specific requirements in the Convention Guidelines. Indicator
11.4.3 emphasizes strengthening education and propaganda to protect and safeguard
the world cultural and natural heritage.
As mentioned above, this study is only in the preliminary stage, and has not yet
constructed a complete and detailed index system for the Target. In order to fully and
accurately reflect the great efforts made by various countries in the field of heritage
protection, it is necessary to discuss and study together. In the future, we will continue
to carry out relevant research to promote the sustainable development of World Her-
itage and other SDGs, and look forward to achieving a comprehensive and perfect
sustainable development index and related indicators system of World Heritage.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Prof. Guo Huadong, Prof.Wei Dongying, Prof. Han Qunli,
Prof. Ishwaran Natarajan, Prof. Rosa Lasaponara and Prof. Ana Pereira Roders for
their helpful comments, which improved this manuscript. This work was supported by
the Strategic Priority Research Program of the CAS (XDA19030504).

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