The Role of Green Official Development Assistance in the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 15 Using Explainable AI

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are global objectives adopted by countries worldwide to achieve sustainable development by 2030 and consist of 17 goals and 169 specific targets. Among them, SDG 15 (Life on Land) aims to conserve terrestrial ecosystems and promote their sustainable use. Successful implementation of SDG 15 requires continuous management of terrestrial ecosystems and positive forest transitions. However, systematic analyses examining the role of green official development assistance (ODA), which supports environmental improvement in developing countries, remain limited. Accordingly, this study investigates the role that green ODA can play in forest transitions. Focusing on green ODA provided to developing countries between 2010 and 2023, this study employed shapley additive explanations (SHAP), an explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) technique, to predict its influence on SDG 15 implementation scores and to analyze the contributions of economic, environmental, and social indicators. In addition, a SHAP value-based decomposition and a gap index were calculated to examine the contribution of green ODA relative to its input. The results indicate that the overall contribution of green ODA to SDG 15 implementation in developing countries is relatively limited. However, statistically significant effects were observed in country groups with higher levels of SDG 15 implementation performance. In contrast, the effects were weakened or constrained in some country groups with lower levels of SDG 15 implementation. These findings suggest that green ODA may function as a transition accelerator that facilitates positive forest transitions in countries with stronger capacities for implementing SDG 15. Strengthening and improving the existing limitations of green ODA could enhance its role and enable it to contribute more effectively to sustainable development and the conservation of terrestrial ecosystems in developing countries.