New york: With fewer than five years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a new UN report says sustained investment and international cooperation have improved billions of lives, but warns that governments must urgently accelerate action if the goals are to be met by their 2030 deadline.
According to Emirates News Agency, the findings come from the 2026 SDG Progress Report, released on Tuesday, which calls the goals 'a shared blueprint for peace' while acknowledging the significant political and financial challenges associated with meeting the 17 ambitious targets. All 193 UN Member States adopted the SDGs in 2015 as an urgent call for action to promote peace and prosperity. With the SDGs at the heart of the 2030 Agenda, countries aim to achieve the goals by that year.
Coinciding with the annual report is the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), which kicked off in New York on Tuesday and will run until 15 July. The forum serves as the main UN platform tracking progress on the SDGs.
Since 2015, hard-won gains have been made, including nearly one billion people gaining access to safe drinking water, 1.2 billion people gaining access to safely managed sanitation, new HIV infections falling by 30% between 2015 and 2024, electricity now reaching 92% of the global population, internet access surging from 40 to 74%, and social protection now covering more than half the global population.
Despite those achievements, the report concludes that overall progress remains far too slow, with one in 10 people still living in extreme poverty, food insecurity affecting 2.3 billion people, maternal mortality remaining nearly three times the global target, global temperatures reaching 1.43°Celsius above pre-industrial levels in 2025, 273 million children and young people remaining out of school, and the global refugee population more than doubling in the past decade.
Of the 139 SDG targets with trend data, only 36% are on track or making moderate progress. Meanwhile, 49% of them are advancing too slowly and 15% have regressed below 2015 baselines. Escalating conflicts, climate change, slowing economic growth, rising debt, and a record decline in official development assistance have slowed progress toward the SDGs and disproportionately affected the world's most vulnerable people, according to the report.
At UN Headquarters on Tuesday, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed called for reforms that would allow international development banks to provide debt relief and longer-term financing to initiatives that would advance the SDGs. 'Many countries are being asked to deliver on promises without the tools to keep them,' she said.