SDG Progress Report

In May 2023, the UN Secretary-General released the report “Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals: Towards a Rescue Plan for People and Planet.”

The key messages of the report were:

• Leave no one behind. That defining principle of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a shared promise by every country to work together to secure the rights and well-being of everyone on a healthy, thriving planet. But halfway to 2030, that promise is in peril.
• Early efforts after the SDGs were adopted produced some favourable trends. Extreme poverty and child mortality rates continued to fall. Inroads were made against such diseases as HIV and hepatitis. Some targets for gender equality were seeing positive results. Electricity access in the poorest countries was on the rise and the share of renewables in the energy mix was increasing. Globally, unemployment was back to levels not seen since before the 2008 financial crisis. The proportion of waters under national jurisdiction covered by marine protected areas had more than doubled in five years. But it is clear now that too much of this progress was fragile and most of it was too slow. In the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and climate-related disasters have exacerbated already faltering progress.
• At the mid-way point on our way to 2030, the SDGs are in deep trouble. A preliminary assessment of the roughly 140 targets with data show only about 12% are on track; close to half, though showing progress, are moderately or severely off track and some 30% have either seen no movement or regressed below the 2015 baseline.
• Under current trends, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030 - and only about one third of countries will meet the target to halve national poverty levels. Shockingly, the world is back at hunger levels not seen since 2005 – and food prices remain higher in more countries than in the period from 2015-2019. The way things are going, it will take 286 years to close gender gaps in legal protection and remove discriminatory laws. And in the area of education, the impacts of years of underinvestment and learning losses are such that by 2030, some 84 million children will be out of school and 300 million children or young people who attend school will leave unable to read and write.
• If ever there was an illumination of the short sightedness of our prevailing economic and political systems, it is the ratcheting up of the war on nature. A small window of opportunity is fast closing to limit global temperatures to 1.5 degrees and prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis and secure climate justice for people, communities and countries on the frontlines of climate change. Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise – to a level not seen in 2 million years. At the current rate of progress, renewables will remain a mere fraction of our energy supplies in 2030, some 660 million people will remain without electricity and close to 2 billion will continue to rely on polluting fuels and technologies for cooking.  So much of our lives and health depend on nature, yet it could take another 25 years to halt deforestation and vast numbers of species worldwide are threatened with extinction.
• The lack of SDG progress is universal, but it is abundantly clear that developing countries and the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people are bearing the brunt of our collective failure. This is a direct result of global injustices that go back hundreds of years but are still playing out today. Compounding climate, COVID and economic injustices are leaving many developing countries with fewer options and even less resources to make the SDGs a reality.

 

The Secretary-General’s call to member nations:

• I urge Heads of State and Government to recommit to seven years of accelerated, sustained and transformative action, both nationally   and internationally, to deliver on the promise of the SDGs.
• I call on governments to advance concrete, integrated and targeted policies and actions to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and end the war on nature, with a particular focus on advancing the rights women and girls and empowering the most vulnerable.
• I also urge leaders to embrace my Climate Acceleration Agenda to drive a just renewables revolution and secure climate justice for those on the frontlines of the climate  crisis.    We must also deliver on  the Kunming-Montreal  Global Biodiversity Framework, work to further reduce risks from disasters, and build integrated and sustainable food, water and sanitation systems while making the right to a healthy environment a reality for all people.
• I urge on governments to strengthen national and sub-national capacity, accountability and public institutions to deliver accelerated SDG progress.
• To ensure developing countries can deliver in the above areas,  I strongly encourage the international community to recommit this September to deliver on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and to mobilize the resources and investment needed for developing countries to achieve the SDGs, particularly those in special situations and experiencing acute vulnerability.
• I urge member states to facilitate the continued strengthening of the UN development system and to boost the capacity of the multilateral system to tackle emerging challenges and address SDG related gaps and weaknesses in the international architecture that have emerged since 2015.

 

An SDG Summit will be held in September 2023 to review the progress of the SDGs.