Less than 4 years from development goals deadline, progress shows what’s possible
With the 2030 SDG deadline approaching, the UN highlights uneven progress and calls for urgent action to meet global development targets amid financing gaps and rising challenges.
Benin’s minister of economic cooperation outlined how the country has raised domestic revenue by 0.5 per cent of GDP annually for a decade, issued Africa’s first SDG bond in 2021, and expanded education and water access from 40 per cent to 80 per cent in five years. Aristide Medenou emphasized that without increased domestic revenue, governments cannot advance SDG implementation, citing 25,000 jobs created in a new industrial zone launched in 2021.
The UN’s latest progress report shows only 36 per cent of 139 tracked SDG targets are on track or making moderate progress, while 49 per cent are progressing too slowly and 15 per cent have regressed below 2015 baselines. Nearly a billion people gained access to safely managed drinking water since 2015, yet 2.1 billion faced food insecurity in 2025 and one in 10 people still live in extreme poverty, according to the SDG Progress Report.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned the world remains off track to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, with current trajectories pointing to a 2.8-degree rise this century. He noted multilateral cooperation has improved child and maternal mortality rates, prevented millions of new HIV infections, and expanded access to education and renewable energy, but conflicts and debt constraints hinder further progress.
Young UN SDG Leaders Suzuka Nakamura and Adelin Pierre urged governments to match the urgency of the 2015 SDG adoption with concrete action, while Guterres called for greater investment in health and education, a just transition to renewable energy, and stronger debt support for developing countries to accelerate progress.