Polski
Business and economics, Issue 13/2025
How is the world meeting the Sustainable Development Goals? Not well, says the UN
Jul
Management theory says that goals should be achievable and measurable. In line with this idea, since 2016 the UN has been publishing periodic reports on progress in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in individual countries and regions. The conclusion of this year’s edition is quite sad: none of the goals adopted 10 years ago will be achieved by 2030.
Commitment is not lacking
The most positive conclusion of the Sustainable Development Report released in June this year. Sustainable Development Report 2025 is the scale of commitment to sustainable development. As many as 190 of the 193 UN member countries have submitted national action plans for adapting Agenda 30, thereby submitting to Voluntary National Reviews (VNR, from Voluntary National Review), analyzing successes, challenges and future plans. The three countries that declined to participate in the VNR process were Haiti, Myanmar and the United States.
The report’s authors are pleased to add that voluntary plans to meet the Sustainable Development Goals have also been submitted by some local and regional governments. As of March this year, there were 249 VNRs in the UN database.
The greatest progress… in Southeast Asia
What may come as a surprise is the pace of implementation of the commitments made, which is not at all the highest in the most developed part of the world. The leader in this regard turned out to be Southeast Asia, where the SDG index is growing the fastest. Analysts link this fact to the region’s dynamic socio-economic development.
In terms of regional leaders, the report’s authors singled out Benin in sub-Saharan Africa, Nepal in Southeast Asia, Peru in Latin America, the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East and North Africa region, Uzbekistan in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, as well as Costa Rica in the OECD and Saudi Arabia in the G20.
Also noteworthy is the fact that for the first time in the top 50 countries with the highest SDG index is China (ranked 49), while India has moved into the top 100 (ranked 99).
The European Union and the Sustainable Development Goals
How does Europe look against this background? Positively, if one considers the pure rate of achievement of each of the 17 SDGs. Worse if one measures its rate of growth. The fact remains, however, that of the 20 countries in the world that have met the largest share of their commitments, as many as 19 are in Europe. First place in the ranking goes to Finland, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Germany and France. Poland was ranked high, 9th, ahead of the UK and Spain.
Even in this top 20, every country has serious problems meeting at least two of the Sustainable Development Goals. Unfortunately, they very often relate to climate and biodiversity. In Poland, these are the goals of zero hunger (SGD 2), responsible consumption and production (SGD 12) and life under water (SGD 14).
Agenda 2030 fiasco?
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out in Agenda 2030, adopted a decade ago, were to await implementation through specific tasks adopted by the signatories. The deadline is just five years away, and according to the report’s authors, there is no indication that any of the SDGs will be achieved at the global level. Conflict, structural weaknesses and limited tax revenues were cited as the primary obstacles at the global level.
Was there anything optimistic in the report? Yes. Most UN countries have made tremendous progress on goals directly related to basic services and infrastructure. In particular, there is talk of increasing access to electricity (SDG 7) and the Internet (SDG 9), and reducing infant and child mortality under 3 years of age (SDG 3).
United States in a marauding position
Sustainable Development Report 2025 also assesses the level of support for the principle of multilateralism. At the UN, it is defined as the degree of commitment to international cooperation to achieve the jointly set Sustainable Development Goals. A special UN-Mi indicator was created for its assessment.
Leading the ranking of countries with the highest UN-Mi index is Barbados, a small island state in the Caribbean region. In contrast, the last ranked country is the United States, which officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO) after Donald Trump became president.
Financing sustainable development
According to UN analysts, in developing countries the main obstacle to achieving the SDGs is the lack of sufficiently large fiscal space. This means that tax and other revenues are insufficient to enable investment in sustainable development. In particular, fiscal space is constrained by debt and lack of access to long-term capital.
The issue was discussed at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), held in Seville from June 30 to July 3 this year. The meeting of country leaders adopted the Compromiso de Sevilla commitment, which lays out a pathway to cover a financing gap of $4 trillion a year – the amount needed for developing countries to meet the Sustainable Development Goals as outlined in Agenda 30. The action plan includes catalyzing large-scale investment, reducing the debt crisis and reforming the international financial infrastructure.
The Seville Compromise outlined 130 specific initiatives that focus on stimulating public and private investment for sustainable development. Among them were ideas such as taxing private jets and first-class flights and Debt-for-Development Swap Programs.
Sustainability is profitable
Sustainable Development Report 2025 places special emphasis on the financial aspect of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. According to the authors, capital should flow primarily to developing countries, where investments offer a much higher rate of growth. New instruments of capital support must create preferential conditions for a shift in global investment directions.
Increasing the UN budget, which in 2023 was 50 times lower than global military spending, was cited as particularly important. Individual member countries also need to start investing more in common sustainable development goals, such as protecting tropical forests, seas and oceans. It is also necessary to change the rules of international financial markets, which currently favor countries using the world’s leading currencies, namely the US dollar and the euro.
Poorer countries are cut off from sources of capital due to their low credit ratings, which the report’s authors say lacks economic logic. Nor does the maze of unilateral economic sanctions or the lack of interest by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in long-term sustainable development investments in poor countries help.
In the article, I used:
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2025 Financing Sustainable Development to 2030 and Mid-Century, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Guillaume Lafortune, Grayson Fuller, Guilherme Iablonovski, DOI 10.25546/111909
