Where do the UN Sustainable Development Goals stand?

The world has just six years until the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 objectives adopted by the United Nations in 2015. Each of the U.N.’s 193 member states agreed to work toward achieving the SDGs — but today, less than a fifth of the SDG targets are on track for 2030, while another fifth of those goals have gone backward, according to this year’s official U.N. report to monitor progress on the SDGs. “Today, we should be celebrating,” said Inger Ashing, the chief executive officer of Save the Children International, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week. “But we’re not in a position where we can celebrate, because so many things are going in the wrong direction.” Ashing’s words echoed those made by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who said the world had received a “failing grade” after the SDG progress report was released earlier this year. Meanwhile, as thousands gathered in New York for UNGA, Save the Children published its own SDG analysis that looked more deeply at children — and how the world was faring on the SDGs that most affected those under 18. The results were bleak, with most countries off track to deliver on key SDG priorities for children. Levels of global hunger, for example, are higher now than they were in 2015 — and despite global progress on stunting, a malnutrition-driven condition with both physical and developmental effects, more than 1 in 5 children will still be stunted by 2030, the report found. There’s a mixed picture on education, too. Most countries still require “high levels of effort” to reach the related SDG target, the report stated, a situation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, some 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries are unable to understand a simple written text, according to a report cited from the World Bank. Despite those statistics, ending child marriage seemed to have fared worst of all, Save the Children found — with just five countries either ending the practice or on track to doing so by 2030. It’s a trend that gets worse when compared across socioeconomic levels, with the poorest 20% of girls twice as likely to enter a child marriage than their richer counterparts. “You would assume that, considering everything we know, most countries would have a positive outlook and a different trend [around child marriage],” Ashing told Devex, referring to Save the Children’s report. “But what we are seeing is that this is continuing to happen in many, many places.” One reason for that, Ashing explained, is the interconnected nature of many of the SDGs, including those around child marriage and gender equality. In the wake of any natural disaster, conflict, or climate crisis, rates of child marriage tend to rise, Ashing explained — with impossible circumstances forcing impossible choices. Despite that, Ashing had seen some bright spots — even among the countries struggling the most. For example, just under a third of all Sierra Leone’s children are married before the age of 18, but in June of this year, the country officially banned the practice. Now, Ashing pointed out, anyone who marries a child faces up to 15 years in jail, a law that builds on the West African country’s First Lady Fatima Maada Bio’s “Hands Off Our Girls” campaign. “The governments where most of these things happen, and where children are living in the most challenging situations — they need to step up,” said Ashing. “There’s no one else that can do that for them.” That being said, governments also need the money to do that work, Ashing caveated — along with the ability to deliver programming without being saddled with international debt. “They need to invest in proper health systems, proper education systems. They need to prioritize within their own budgets,” she added. “They need to ensure they have the right legislation, the right policy frameworks, and the right processes to deliver what they are mandated to deliver.”