SDG Goals Trick to Remember: Four Lines That Hold All 17 in Order
A four-line mnemonic for all 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the correct order, a full number-by-number table, the 5P grouping for Mains answers, and a ten minute drill to lock it in.
A four-line mnemonic for all 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the correct order, a full number-by-number table, the 5P grouping for Mains answers, and a ten minute drill to lock it in.
The trick, first
Say this four times and you have all 17 in order: Poor Hungry Sick Unschooled Girls Want Electricity. Work In Fair Cities, Consume Less. Climate, Sea, Soil. Peace and Partners.
Seven words, then five, then three, then two. That is 17. Line one covers Goals 1 to 7: No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health, Quality Education, Gender Equality, Clean Water, Affordable and Clean Energy. Line two covers 8 to 12: Decent Work, Industry and Innovation, Reduced Inequalities, Sustainable Cities, Responsible Consumption. Line three is 13, 14, 15: Climate Action, Life Below Water, Life on Land. Line four is 16 and 17: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, and Partnerships for the Goals.
Read it once more before you scroll. Most people who say they cannot remember the SDGs have never actually tried to say them out loud.
The full list, number by number
Use this to check yourself, not to read. Cover the middle column, run the mnemonic, and see where you slip. Almost everyone slips at 9 and 10, and at 12 versus 13.
| No. | Goal | Cue word |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | No Poverty | Poor |
| 2 | Zero Hunger | Hungry |
| 3 | Good Health and Well-being | Sick |
| 4 | Quality Education | Unschooled |
| 5 | Gender Equality | Girls |
| 6 | Clean Water and Sanitation | Want (water) |
| 7 | Affordable and Clean Energy | Electricity |
| 8 | Decent Work and Economic Growth | Work |
| 9 | Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure | In |
| 10 | Reduced Inequalities | Fair |
| 11 | Sustainable Cities and Communities | Cities |
| 12 | Responsible Consumption and Production | Consume Less |
| 13 | Climate Action | Climate |
| 14 | Life Below Water | Sea |
| 15 | Life on Land | Soil |
| 16 | Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions | Peace |
| 17 | Partnerships for the Goals | Partners |
Why the order is not random
The sequence has a shape, and once you see it the mnemonic becomes almost unnecessary.
Start with one human being. Is she poor? Is she fed? Is she healthy, schooled, treated equally? Does her house have water and power? That is Goals 1 to 7, moving outward from the body to the home.
Then the person steps out to earn. Work, then the industry and infrastructure that create work, then the question of who gets left out of that growth, then the city they all crowd into, then what that city consumes. Goals 8 to 12.
Then the bill arrives. Climate, oceans, land. Goals 13, 14, 15, in descending order of scale.
And finally the two that make the other fifteen possible: institutions that work, and countries that cooperate. If you can retell that story in your own words, you will never need the mnemonic again.
The 5P grouping, for Mains answers
The UN itself bundles the 17 goals under five Ps: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, Partnership. People is roughly Goals 1 to 5, Prosperity is 7 to 11, Planet is 12 to 15 with water and sanitation often pulled in, Peace is 16, Partnership is 17. Goal 6 sits on the boundary and different UN documents place it differently, so do not lose sleep over it.
This grouping is worth more in the answer booklet than the numbering. An intro that says the 2030 Agenda rests on five Ps, and then organises your body under two of them, reads far better than a list. Keep the anchor facts with it: adopted on 25 September 2015 by the UN General Assembly, 17 goals and 169 targets, target year 2030, successor to the eight Millennium Development Goals that ran from 2000 to 2015. NITI Aayog tracks India's progress through the SDG India Index, first released in 2018.
Ten minutes to lock it in
Memory works on retrieval, not rereading. So do this instead of staring at the list.
After three days of this you will be able to answer any goal number cold. Test yourself the hard way, out of order, because that is how a matching question in Prelims will come at you. Somebody says 14 and you should think Life Below Water before you have finished the sentence.
One honest caution. UPSC rarely asks you to number a goal outright. What it does ask is whether a statement about a target or an index is correct, and you cannot judge that if you are still fumbling over which goal is which. The mnemonic is not the destination. It is the ten minutes that stops you wasting an hour later.
- Write the four lines from memory. No peeking, even if you get half of it wrong.
- Say the numbers aloud with the goals, 1 to 17, twice.
- Now go backwards, 17 to 1. This is where the story logic saves you.
- Ask yourself five random numbers, say 11, 4, 16, 9, 13, and answer instantly.
- Repeat once tomorrow and once on day four. Two minutes each time.
FAQs
1. How many SDG targets and indicators are there?
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals contain 169 targets. These are monitored through the global indicator framework, which has around 230 indicators, revised periodically by the UN Statistical Commission.
2. When were the SDGs adopted and when do they end?
They were adopted on 25 September 2015 at the UN General Assembly as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They came into force on 1 January 2016 and run until 2030.
3. What is the difference between MDGs and SDGs?
The Millennium Development Goals were eight goals running from 2000 to 2015, aimed mainly at developing countries and focused on poverty, health and education. The SDGs are 17 goals for all countries, rich and poor, and add climate, oceans, inequality, cities, consumption and institutions.
4. Which SDGs do people most often mix up?
Goals 9 and 10 get swapped constantly, so remember that industry and infrastructure come first and reduced inequalities follow. The other common slip is 12 and 13: responsible consumption is 12, climate action is 13.
5. What is the SDG India Index?
It is NITI Aayog's tool for ranking states and union territories on their progress towards the SDGs, first released in 2018 and updated periodically. It scores each state on most of the 17 goals and gives a composite score out of 100.
6. Is there a similar trick for the G20 members?
Yes, the G20 is best remembered in regional blocks rather than as a flat list of names, which keeps the count and the new African Union seat straight.