The half way point: Marking SDG progress towards 2030

What’s hindering progress?

Undoubtedly, Covid played a catastrophic role in the advancement of SDGs across the board. Research demonstrates the impact the pandemic had – and continues to have – on healthcare, economies and depleted public resources.

Data from the World Bank, published in World Development, suggests that following Covid, resource-stretched nations haven’t reported accurately on their SDG progress. Only 47% of data required to track progress on gender equality (SDG5) is currently available, rendering women and girls effectively invisible, as well as slowing down the pace of progress, according to UN Women.

What is consistently clear, however, is the marked divide in progress between rich and poor countries – an issue that existed long before Covid, but which has been exacerbated in its aftermath.

According to the SDSN report, there is a real risk that the gap in SDG outcomes between high-income countries (HICs) and low-income countries (LICs) will be larger in 2030 than it was in 2015. Right now, 37 out of the 69 world’s poorest countries are in debt distress or at high risk, hampering their ability to accelerate action on the SDGs. It’s no surprise then, that Lebanon, Yemen, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, and Myanmar are the five countries with “the largest number of SDG targets moving in the wrong direction”.

Throughout the Covid pandemic and war on Ukraine, HICs clearly demonstrated their capabilities in mobilising vast financial resources, but it seems they’re not prepared to do the same for global sustainable development, despite previous commitments and urgency regarding climate financing. SDSN’s report concludes with a call to UN member states to support a “comprehensive reform of global financial architecture”, and to ramp up financing flows by at least $500bn by 2025 to close the gap facing nations trapped in a poverty cycle that prevents SDG action.

Differing priorities

Underpinning these financial obstacles is what some academics have referred to as the risk of “common vocabulary”. In a paper from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) which explores the SDGs at their halfway point, the authors note that one of the main strengths of the SDGs is that “they provide a globally shared vocabulary that can connect different actors, sectors, and levels of society from local to global”.

(The goals) provide a globally shared vocabulary that can connect different actors, sectors, and levels of society from local to global

However, they say, there is a risk that elements “remain unattended or overlooked because of this common vocabulary”. In other words, not pulling your weight is easier in a group situation, because someone else can pick up the slack. This of course only exacerbates the divide between HICs – which are predominantly concerned with their own wellbeing – and LICs, which lack the means to contribute to the vocabulary in the first place.

According to the authors, there are comprehensive national differences in how the SDGs are used in national strategies, national indicator systems and so on, and more research into the implications of these differences is needed to better understand how they will impact global progress.

The bigger picture

Another key issue is a tendency for nations to get bogged down in the specific details of each of the SDGs, whereas – and as is demonstrated by references to the “interlinked goals” throughout official SDG documentation – a more integrated approach is needed.

As the RSAS authors note, “The success of SDG implementation is not so much to be identified from the actions aimed at implementing individual SDGs or targets, but more from integrative actions purposefully, or incidentally, directing attention to win–win solutions and avoidance of trade-offs between SDGs”.

This again represents a key difference in approaches between HICs and LICs. Even on a macro level, corporate ESG reports are frequently peppered with references to how specific sustainability initiatives contribute to specific goals, without any real consideration for the ‘bigger picture’.

The need for an integrated approach is nothing new, though. Back in 2017, The Economist Intelligence Unit, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, published a whitepaper calling for a holistic approach that centres partnership and collaboration to “capitalise on the intertwined nature of the world’s social and environmental challenges”. The paper’s authors did, however, acknowledge that this would be difficult to achieve.

Looking ahead

Despite these immense challenges, however, all is not yet lost. “Giving up on the SDGs or extending the deadline to meet them is not an option,” the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (Desa) writes in a guest post on the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) blog. “There is a narrowing window of opportunity over the next seven years to redouble our efforts to eliminate poverty and hunger, advance gender equality and overcome the triple planetary crisis. But it is not too late to turn things around.”

Giving up on the SDGs or extending the deadline to meet them is not an option

Indeed, while UN Economic and Social Council President Lachezara Stoeva acknowledges that we’ve already lost seven years of SDG progress, we still have seven years to go. “But countries must integrate the SDGs into their national development plans, policies and strategies,” she says. “A strong push must be made to accelerate progress, and aligning national priorities with the SDGs is paramount to ensure a coherent and comprehensive approach to sustainable development.”

The task at hand is significant. But if the delegates and heads of state attending the SDG Summit this September can keep in their hearts the hope and optimism that was in abundance when the goals were first laid out seven years ago, maybe progress can turn a corner.