UN statistics report puts 2023 SDG Summit declaration into action | News | SDG Knowledge Hub

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) has released the 2024 edition of its annual Sustainable Development Goals report. The report recognizes the significant challenges the world faces in achieving the SDGs and identifies areas where accelerated action is needed to deliver on the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Sustainable Development Goals report is the only official UN report monitoring global progress towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. It is produced by DESA in collaboration with the UN Statistical System and uses data and estimates from the Global SDG Indicators Database, which contains global, regional and country-specific data and metadata on the official SDG indicators. The database uses information from custodians for each SDG indicator and indicates whether the national data are adjusted, estimated, modelled or the result of global monitoring.

The report paints a picture of a “world in transition”. It finds that only 17% of SDG targets are on track, nearly half show minimal or moderate progress, and more than a third show a lack of progress or a reversal of progress. According to the findings, 23 million more people lived in extreme poverty in 2022 than in 2019, over 100 million more were hungry, and global temperatures were approaching the “critical 1.5°C threshold”.

The report cites the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts, geopolitical tensions and climate change as reasons for the progress.

“The time for words is over – political declarations must urgently be followed by actions,” said Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua on the occasion of the report’s publication. “We must act now, and act boldly.”

The report identifies three urgent priorities:

• Financing for development, including bridging the $4 trillion annual financing gap to achieve the SDGs and reforming the global financial architecture;
• Peace and security, including the resolution of existing conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy; and
• Massive investments and effective partnerships have enabled rapid implementation to drive critical change in food, energy, social protection, digital connectivity and other areas.

The report describes the Future Summit in September as a crucial moment to “put the world back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”.

Other important findings include:

• Global renewable energy capacity has grown by 8.1% annually over the past five years.
• In most regions, girls have reached parity at all school levels and are even ahead of boys.
• 95% of the world’s population has access to mobile broadband (up from only 78% in 2015).
• Improved access to treatment has prevented 20.8 million AIDS-related deaths over the past three decades.

At the same time:

• In half of the world’s most vulnerable countries, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is now growing more slowly than in industrialised countries.
• Only 58% of students worldwide achieve a minimum level of reading proficiency at the end of primary school.
• The external debt of developing countries remains unprecedentedly high.
• About 60 percent of low-income countries (LICs) are at high risk of over-indebtedness or are already in such a situation.

The report was released ahead of the July session of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) on 27 June 2024. It is one of several SDG assessments released each year ahead of the HLPF. The UN Secretary-General’s SDG Progress Report and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Sustainable Development Report will also feed into the HLPF’s deliberations in July. (Publication: The 2024 Sustainable Development Goals Report) (Key messages) (Key findings) (Publication landing page) (DESA press release)