SPITSYNA TATIANA A.

The article analyzes the main instruments for evaluating the Russian Federation's progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to the author, the Global Sustainable Development Index has several flaws,including using irrelevant and outdated information and poor correlation between indicators and SDG targets. Additionally, not all of the targets into which the UN SDGs are decomposed have corresponding indicators.The Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) has more than 120 indicators for 17 SDGs in its National List of Sustainable Development Indicators, making it challenging to interpret them in aggregate.The list of indicators under SDG No.7,"Affordable and Clean Energy",was examined to show that the indicators in the Rosstat list do not always accuratelyrepresent the essence of the SDG target. The author supports the necessity of developing a domestic methodology for evaluating progress toward accomplishing the SDGs and adjusting the composition of sustainable development indicators determined byRosstat.Finding agreement among the professional communityregarding the weighting coefficients of importance and the hierarchy of indicators within each of the SDGs should be the main focus of its development.The article suggests a scale for calculating indicator's numerical value based on its progress in comparison to the average indicator over five years and its compliance with the target value.

The external and internal conditions of the domestic economy are changing dynamically. These changes should be considered when adjusting the existing and developing new mechanisms to ensure the investment attractiveness of the economy. These also include the Federal Law “On Protecting and Encouraging Capital Investments in the Russian Federation”, implementation of special investment contracts, and further development of the “Project Finance Factory” program. The problem of improving the quality of investment policy should be addressed not only through the development of a system of measures aimed at the development of investment legislation and increasing state support for investment activities. The “evolution of values” is of fundamental importance here and contributes to the formation of an investment mentality. Strategic goals will dominate over short-term ones, and the strengthening of trust between the state, business, and civil society will be transformed into a real improvement of the investment climate, reduction of risk premiums and interest rates, as well as an increase in the volume of investments in public-private partnership projects. A necessary condition for the “evolution of values” is the creation of a specific system of education.

Practical use of the most well-known country ratings does not always allow obtaining objective information about the real situation in various countries and assessing the prospects for their development. Popular wisdom expressed by the aphorism ‘We have not noticed how the truth has been replaced with ratings’ is becoming increasingly popular. The article proposes a tool for analyzing the relationship between the positions of different countries in the most popular ratings, based on the use of a matrix of paired correlation coefficients, assessing their significance according to the Pearson criterion and the strength of the correlation connection on the Cheddock scale. Based on the calculations, it was found that the dynamics of the countries advancement in the Doing Business ranking did not have statistically significant correlation with almost any ratings and macroeconomic indicators characterizing the real dynamics of socio-economic development. Shortcomings in the methods of ranking countries by prosperity, social development, rule of law index, level of perception of corruption, global happiness index are considered. Arguments are made that once the Coronavirus pandemic has been overcome, it is more likely that ratings will be more in demand to assess the quality of national security and the extent to which sustainable development goals have been achieved. It is proved that it is advisable to include the Global competitiveness rating, Human development index and SDG index as the most promising ratings that clearly demonstrate the country’s specific achievements in economic reforms and the growth of its international prestige.