Opinion: To fight for the SDGs, it’s time for this rescue plan

In 2015, the international community agreed to a bold and transformative plan of action to secure the rights and well-being of everyone on a healthy, thriving planet — the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Today, this promise is in peril. We had some quick wins after the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, were adopted alongside the 2030 Agenda — in reducing poverty and child mortality, in the fight against diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, and in expanding electricity access, to name a few. But too much of this progress was fragile and most of it was too slow. For the first time in decades, some development progress is reversing under the combined impacts of climate disasters, conflict, economic downturn, and lingering COVID-19 effects. Unless we take urgent action now, the 2030 Agenda will become an epitaph for a world that might have been. This collective failure will be felt in every country — but the burden will fall most heavily on low- and middle-income countries and the world’s poorest people. Echoing this, the U.N.’s latest update on SDG progress is sobering. Of the roughly 140 targets with data, only about 12% are on track to be achieved by 2030. More than half, though showing progress, are moderately or severely off track and nearly a third have either seen no movement or regressed below the 2015 baseline. Currently, global hunger levels are back at 2005 levels, and by 2030, under current trends, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty, 84 million children will be out of school, and 300 million children or young people who attend school will leave unable to read and write. At this rate, it will take a staggering 286 years to close gender gaps in legal protection and remove discriminatory laws. At the same time, the war on nature continues unabated with little recognition that our lives and health depend on nature. Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise — to a level not seen in 2 million years. It could take another 25 years to halt deforestation and vast numbers of species worldwide are threatened with extinction. But there are solutions. There is a way to turn things around and deliver on our promise to current and future generations. Now is the time to fight for the SDGs. We must redouble our collective efforts to change course dramatically and swiftly. Here are some of the key elements to address. First, heads of state and government should recommit to seven years of accelerated, sustained, and transformative action, both nationally and internationally. It also means overhauling the international financial and economic system along with unprecedented collaboration among Group of 20 major economies’ members and support for all LMICs to advance SDG and climate action. Second, governments must advance concrete, integrated, and targeted policies and actions to leave no one behind: to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality, and end the war on nature, with a particular focus on advancing the rights of women and girls and empowering the most vulnerable. Social protection floors — that guarantee essential health care and income security for everyone — are part of this push. Third, governments will have to strengthen the capacity and accountability of their public institutions. Gearing these institutions toward SDG achievement will be crucial to rebuilding public trust. Fourth, the international community will need to mobilize the resources and investment needed for LMICs to achieve the SDGs — particularly those in special situations and experiencing acute vulnerability — by recommitting to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. To make this possible, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is calling on U.N. member states to endorse and deliver an SDG stimulus that will generate some $500 billion annually to finance the SDGs. This goes alongside deep and essential reforms that he has recommended to the international financial architecture. Fifth is the continued strengthening of the United Nations development system. It is clearer now more than ever that one country’s action has costs and benefits for other countries. Boosting the capacity of the multilateral system is essential to address long-standing challenges and emerging threats alike. The 2030 agenda stated that this generation could be the first to succeed in ending poverty — and the last to have a chance of saving the planet. We have the historical advantage of unmatched knowledge, technology, and resources. We can still deliver on this promise, but breaking through to a better future will require a renewed sense of common purpose and solidarity — in ambition, commitment, financing, and action. Let us make use of this and the historic opportunity the SDG Summit in September brings to deliver the promise. Our shared future depends on it.