In the UN's sustainable development rankings for 2018, which measures countries' progress in meeting goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Croatia was ranked 21st out of 155 nations, moving up 15 places from the first report released in 2016.

Through the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, world governments agreed to work on eradicating poverty and famine, on developing education systems, health care available to all, gender equality, and reducing inequality in their countries.

In terms of efforts to sustainably develop their societies, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and France topped this year’s list, business daily Poslovni Dnevnik reported on Monday. Neighbouring Slovenia was ranked 8th, the Czech Republic was 13th, and many other EU member states ended up below Croatia in 21st.

According to another report on the influence of social transfers, excluding pensions, on poverty levels in the EU, these transfers have raised incomes of a third of EU’s population above the poverty level, set at 60 percent of the median national income.

By country, some 57 percent of Finns and 51 percent of Danes were brought out of poverty thanks to social transfers, and in Greece and Romania they helped 16 percent of the population in escaping poverty.

In Croatia, social transfers helped cut the number of people living in poverty by a quarter. In terms of share of GDP, Denmark and Finland spend record high amounts on social transfers, with 15 percent and 11.9 percent respectively.

Croatia spends 6.2 percent of GDP for the same purpose, which is below the EU average of 8.9 percent.

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