SDG Report 2023: Implementing the SDG Stimulus

SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
REPORT 2023
Implementing the SDG Stimulus
Includes the SDG Index and Dashboards

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Implementing the SDG Stimulus. Sustainable Development Report 2023
© Jeffrey D. Sachs, Guillaume Lafortune, Grayson Fuller and Eamon Drumm, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-903200-12-7 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-903200-13-4 (pdf)
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SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
REPORT 2023
Implementing the SDG Stimulus
Includes the SDG Index and Dashboards
By Jeffrey D. Sachs, Guillaume Lafortune, Grayson Fuller
and Eamon Drumm

The Sustainable Development Report (SDR) reviews progress made each year on the Sustainable Development Goals since their
adoption by the 193 UN Member States in 2015. Midpoint on the way to 2030, this year’s edition takes stock of progress so
far and discusses priorities to restore and accelerate SDG progress. More specifically, this year’s edition focuses on the need to
scale up development finance and reform the global financial architecture to support the SDGs. The SDR 2023 is published
on the eve of the 2023 Paris Summit for a New Global Financial Pact and ahead of other major international summits this year,
including the UN High-Level Political Forum in July and the SDG Summit at Heads of States Level in September, the September
G20 Meeting under Indian Presidency, and the December COP28 in Dubai. The SDR 2023 also aims to provide significant
contributions in the lead-up to the 2024 Summit of the Future, to enhance cooperation on critical challenges and address gaps
in global governance.
The report was prepared by the SDSN’s newly created SDG Transformation Center and coordinated by Guillaume Lafortune in
cooperation with Jeffrey D. Sachs. Lead writers are Jeffrey D. Sachs, Guillaume Lafortune, Grayson Fuller, and Eamon Drumm.
Members of the Leadership Council of the SDSN led the preparation of Part 1.“How to Achieve the SDGs: the SDSN Framework”.
The statistical work was led by Grayson Fuller, in collaboration with Leslie Bermont-Diaz and Samory Touré and under the
supervision of Guillaume Lafortune. The interactive website and data visualization that accompanies this report was developed
by Max Gruber and Ruben Andino. Other major contributors to the data and analyses in this year’s report include Juliana Bartels,
Grant Cameron, María Cortés Puch, Olivia Lee Cosio, Salma Dahir, Juliette Douillet, Guilherme Iablonovski, Christian Kroll, Alyson
Marks, Isabella Massa, Maryam Rabiee, Casteline Tilus, Emma Torres, and Patrick Paul Walsh. We also thank Minister Romuald
Wadagni from Benin, Simona Marinescu and Peter Schmidt for their contributions.
The SDR 2023 combines data and analyses produced by international organizations, civil society organizations, and research
centers. We thank all of these for their contributions and collaboration in producing the report, including during the annual
public consultation process that took place between April 17th
and April 26th
, 2023.
We also thank the regional and national SDSN networks, the SDSN secretariat, and experts and government officials who
responded to the SDSN 2023 Survey of Government Efforts for the SDGs and provided comments and feedback at various stages.
Lauren Barredo, María Cortés Puch, Andrija Erac, Alyson Marks, Sonja Neve, and Ryan Swaney provided communication support
for the launch of the report. We thank Dublin University Press and Roberto Rossi of Pica Publishing for preparing the report for
publication. We welcome feedback on the publication and data that may help to strengthen future iterations of this work.
Please notify us of any publications that use the SDG Index and Dashboards data or the Sustainable Development Report, and
share your publication with us at info@sdgindex.org.
An interactive online dashboard and all data used in this report can be accessed at: www.sdgtransformationcenter.org and
www.sdgindex.org
June 2023
Published by Dublin University Press
Please cite this report as:
Sachs, J.D., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G., Drumm, E. (2023). Implementing the SDG Stimulus. Sustainable Development
Report 2023. Paris: SDSN, Dublin: Dublin University Press, 2023. 10.25546/102924
This report has been prepared with the extensive advice and consultation of the SDSN Leadership Council members. Members
of the Leadership Council serve in their personal capacities; the opinions expressed in this report may not reflect the positions
or policies of their host institutions. Members are not necessarily in agreement on every detail of this report.
The views expressed in this report do not reflect the views of any organization, agency, or programme of the United Nations.
Design, layout and copyediting by Pica Publishing Ltd – www.pica-publishing.com
Acknowledgements

iii
Sustainable Development Report 2023 Implementing the SDG Stimulus
Executive Summary vi
Part 1. How to Achieve the SDGs: The SDSN Framework 1
Part 2. The SDG Index and Dashboards 23
2.1 SDG Status at the midpoint ofthe 2030Agenda 23
2.2 Leave no one behind 27
2.3 International spillovers and policy coherence 31
2.4 SDG Dashboards by income groups and majorworld regions 34
References44
Part 3. Government Efforts and Commitments
to the SDGs 47
3.1 Political leadership and institutional coordination: results from
the 2023 SDSN survey ofgovernment efforts forthe SDGs 47
3.2 SDG integration into sectoral policies and pathways: scorecards
forthe Six SDGTransformations 54
3.3 Support formultilateralism underthe Charterofthe United Nations 61
3.4 Government effort and commitments forthe SDGs: overall scores 70
References 73
Part 4. Lessons Learned and Next Steps 77
4.1 The SDG Index: a tool forguiding SDG action and strengthening
accountability 77
4.2 Have the SDGs increased data cooperation and innovation? 86
4.3 Conclusions and next steps 88
References 90
Annex.Methods Summary and Data Tables 92
A.1 Interpreting the SDG Index and Dashboards results 92
A.2 Changes to the 2023 edition and limitations 93
A.3 Methodology (overview) 95
References 119
Part 5. Country Profiles 122
Contents

iv Sustainable Development Report 2023 Implementing the SDG Stimulus
List of Figures
List ofFigures
Figure 1.1 SDG Indexworld average: pre-pandemictrend andtrend neededto achievethe SDGs by2030 5
Figure 1.2 Observed and projected gaps in SDG Index score between HICs and LICs (in percentage points) 6
Figure 1.3 Projected global warming underalternative policy scenarios
7
Figure 2.1 World SDG Dashboards at the midpoint ofthe 2030Agenda 24
Figure 2.2 Status on individual SDG targets at the midpoint ofthe 2030Agenda 24
Figure 2.3 The 2023 SDG Index: score and rank 25
Figure 2.4 SDG IndexWorldAverage, 2010-2022 28
Figure 2.5 SDG Index Low-Income Countries’Average, 2010-2022 28
Figure 2.6 Poverty headcount ratio at $2.15/day (PPP, %) in LICs 29
Figure 2.7 Surviving infants who received 2WHO-recommendedvaccines (%), in LICs 29
Figure 2.8 SubjectiveWell-Being, in HICs and LICs 29
Figure 2.9 Unemployment Rate, in HICs and LICs 30
Figure 2.10 Observed and projected gaps in SDG Index score between HICs and LICs 30
Figure 2.11 Countries where 50% ormore ofthe rural population has no access to all-season roads,
and comparison with HICs andWorld average (%) 31
Figure 2.12 SDG Index scoresversus International SpilloverIndex scores, by income level 32
Figure 2.13 Illustration ofenvironmental impacts embodied in international trade 33
Figure 2.14 GHG emissions embodied in the final consumption oftextiles and clothing 34
Figure 2.15 Correlation between 2023 SDG Index Score and NarrowSDG Index (17 “headline” indicators) 35
Figure 2.16 2023 SDG dashboards by region and income group (levels and trends) 36
Figure 2.17 2023 SDG dashboards forOECD countries (levels and trends) 37
Figure 2.18 2023 SDG dashboards forEast and SouthAsia (levels and trends) 38
Figure 2.19 2023 SDG dashboards forEastern Europe and CentralAsia (levels and trends) 39
Figure 2.20 2023 SDG dashboards forLatinAmerica and the Caribbean (levels and trends) 40
Figure 2.21 2023 SDG dashboards forthe Middle East and NorthAfrica (levels and trends) 41
Figure 2.22 2023 SDG dashboards forOceania (levels and trends) 41
Figure 2.23 2023 SDG dashboards forsub-SaharanAfrica (levels and trends) 42
Figure 2.24 2023 SDG dashboards forSmall Island Developing States (SIDS) (levels and trends) 43
Figure 3.1 Aconceptual frameworkto evaluate government efforts and commitment to the SDGs 48
Figure 3.2 Submissions ofvoluntary national reviews (numberofsubmitters, 2023) and submissions
peryearsince 2016 52
Figure 3.3 Designated lead unit forSDG coordination at the central/federal level ofgovernment
to implement the SDGs (2023) 53
Figure 3.4 Integration ofthe SDGs into key policy processes by income groups 53
Figure 3.5 Percentage oflocal and regional governments using selected SDG policies and actions 60
Figure 3.6 UN treaties ratified by MemberStates (%), 1946–2022 64
Figure 3.7 Use ofunilateral coercive measures (UCMs), number(1950–2021) 66
Figure 3.8 Membership in selected UN organizations, 2022 67
Figure 3.9 Participation in conflicts and militarization, 2022 68
Figure 3.10 Official DevelopmentAssistance (ODA) as share ofGNI, 2018–2022 69
Figure 3.11 Conceptual FrameworkforEvaluating Government Efforts and Commitments to
Implement the SDGs and Indicators Retained to Compute the Overall Score for2023 70

v
List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Global Population, Investment, and GDP byWorld Bank Income Category 14
Table 1.2 Credit Ratings by Income Category 14
Table 2.1 Top five countries in terms ofSDG targets achieved oron track, and those
with the greatest percentage oftargets showing a reversal in progress 24
Table 3.1 National government efforts to implement the SDGs, survey results 49
Table 3.2 Scorecard –Transformation 1: Universal quality education and
innovation-based economy 56
Table 3.2 Scorecard –Transformation 1: Universal quality education and innovation-based
economy56
Table 3.3 Scorecard –Transformation 2: Universal health coverage 57
Table 3.4 Scorecard –Transformation 3: Zero-carbon energy systems 59
Table 3.5 Scorecard –Transformation 6:Transformation to universal digital access and services 62
Table 3.6 Measuring government SDG efforts and commitments: scores, ranks and
performance by pillar 72
Table A.1 New indicators and modifications 93
Table A.2 Majorindicatorand data gaps forthe SDGs 94
Table A.3 Countries excluded from the 2023 SDG Index due to insufficient data 96
Table A.4 Indicators included in the Sustainable Development Report 2023 101
Table A.5 Indicatorthresholds and justifications foroptimalvalues 111
Table A.6 Indicators used forSDGTrends and period fortrend estimation 116
List ofBoxes
Box 2.1 The SDG Index and Dashboards 23
Box 2.2 Explaining the SDG Index with a handful ofkey indicators 35
Box 3.1 The OECD, SDSN and the European Committee ofthe Regions survey ofcity and
regional SDG policies in a time ofcrisis 60
Box 4.1 GIS forthe SDGs:Assessing pedestrian accessibility in urban areas 81
Box 4.2 GIS forthe SDGs:Assessing accessibility to all-season roads in rural areas 82
Box 4.3 The long-standing partnership between the European Economic and Social
Committee (EESC) and the SDSN to advance policies and data forthe SDGs in the EU 83
Box 4.4 SDG Index and Dashboards: global, regional, and subnational editions (2016–2023) 85
Box 4.5 Cooperation between SDSN and the Government ofthe Republic ofBenin in the context
ofthe issuance ofthe firstAfrican SDG Bond 86
Box 4.6 Partnership between SDSN and UN Resident Coordinators in SIDS 87
Figure 4.1 Map ofBrazzaville, Republic ofCongo, and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic ofthe Congo,
showcasing the scale at which calculations are performed (100 m2 grid). 79
Figure 4.2 Diagram of a motorable road with the two-kilometer buffer applied, identifying rural
populations living within and outside the buffer area 80
Figure 4.3 Example ofthe method as applied in rural Democratic Republic ofthe Congo 80
Figure 4.4 Statistical Performance Indicators (SPI): Overall Score, 2016-2022 87
Figure A.1 The Four-arrow system fordenoting SDG trends 99
Figure A.2 Graphic representation ofthe methodology forSDG trends 99

vi Sustainable Development Report 2023 Implementing the SDG Stimulus
Executive Summary
At the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, all of the SDGs are seriously off track. From 2015 to 2019, the world
made some progress on the SDGs, although this was already vastly insufficient to achieve the goals. Since the
outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 and other simultaneous crises, SDG progress has stalled globally. In most high-
income countries (HICs), automatic stabilizers, emergency expenditure, and recovery plans mitigated the impacts
of these multiple crises on socioeconomic outcomes. Only limited progress is being made on the environmental
and biodiversity goals, including SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action),
SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and SDG 15 (Life on Land), even in countries that are largely to blame for the climate and
biodiversity crises. The disruptions caused by these multiple crises has aggravated fiscal-space issues in low-income
countries (LICs) and in lower-middle income countries (LMICs), leading to a reversal in progress on several goals and
indicators. Despite this alarming development, the SDGs are still achievable. None of their objectives are beyond our
reach. The world is off track, but that is all the more reason to double down on the SDGs.
At their core, the SDGs are an investment agenda: it is critical that UN Member States adopt and implement
the SDG Stimulus and support a comprehensive reform of the global financial architecture. To achieve the
SDGs the world must both alter its current investment patterns and increase the overall volume of investments.
The Stimulus’urgent objective is to address the chronic shortfall of international SDG financing confronting the
LICs and LMICs, and to ramp up financing flows by at least US$500 billion by 2025. This year’s report also highlights
six priorities to reform the complex system of public and private finance that channels the world’s savings to its
investments – what is known as the Global Financial Architecture:
1. Greatly increase funding to national and subnational governments and private businesses, especially in LICs
and LMICs, to carry out needed SDG investments.
2. Revise the credit rating system and debt sustainability metrics to facilitate long-term sustainable development.
3. Revise liquidity structures for LICs and LMICs, especially regarding sovereign debts, to forestall self-fulfilling
banking and balance-of-payments crises;
4. Create ambitious, internationally-agreed upon criteria for sustainable finance that are mandatory for all public
financial institutions.
5. Align private business investment flows with the SDGs, through improved national planning, regulation,
reporting, and oversight.
6. Reform current institutional frameworks and develop new mechanisms to improve the quality and speed of
deployment of international cooperation, and monitor progress in an open and timely manner.
All countries, poorer and richer alike, should use the half-way momentum to self-critically review and revise
their national SDG strategies and commit to strengthening multilateralism. National governments must
ensure both domestic implementation of the SDGs, including the reduction of negative spillovers, and international
implementation – by building a global governance and financial architecture that delivers the SDGs. Building
on SDSN’s global survey of government efforts and commitment to the SDGs and third-party data, we highlight
major differences across countries, including G20 countries, in their SDG strategies and commitment. Achieving
the SDGs requires global cooperation guided by the United Nations Charter. In 2022, the United Nations Secretary-
General appointed a High-Level Advisory Board (HLAB) on effective multilateralism, with a mandate to develop a
list of concrete, actionable recommendations to improve international cooperation and advance the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development. We introduce in the report this year a pilot index of countries commitment to and
support of multilateralism under the UN Charter.

vii
Executive Summary
Further investment is needed in statistical capacity and data literacy to support long-term pathways for key
SDG transformations. At the halfway mark to 2030, there remains a great deal of work to be done to improve the
data and methods underlying the SDG indicator framework. Evidence suggests that since 2016 there has been only
limited progress and convergence in countries’statistical capacity, including LICs and LMICs, and that international
funding for data and statistics fell between 2019 and 2021. Also, in an information-rich and post-truth environment,
citizens and decision-makers need knowledge and tools to transform data and science into evidence, actions, and
long-term policies. According to major international studies, few teenagers can differentiate between a fact and an
opinion. As underlined during the United Nations World Data Forum 2023 and in the 27 April Hangzhou Declaration,
investing in statistical capacity, science, and data literacy are important priorities for achieving the SDGs.
The SDSN and its global network will double-down on efforts to implement the SDGs by 2030 and beyond.
The SDSN was created in 2012, soon after the Rio+20 Summit, to mobilize the world’s universities, think tanks,
and national laboratories on behalf of the SDGs. SDSN’s mission was fourfold: (i) scholarly research, (ii) educational
innovation and partnerships, (iii) convening power, and (iv) outreach to the public. We are proud of our efforts
since 2012 in these four areas. The SDSN is now a global network of more than 1,900 member organizations, mainly
universities, organized in 53 national and regional chapters. Via science-based pathways and analytics, the SDSN
supports discussions on SDG implementation at the global, regional, and national levels. These are available on the
newly set up, open-access, SDG Transformation Center Portal. All UN Member States and UN agencies can count on
the continued efforts and energies of the SDSN around the world to support all governments, businesses, and civil
society in embracing and aligning with the SDGs on sustainable development.

viii Sustainable Development Report 2023 Implementing the SDG Stimulus
AI Artificial Intelligence
CAPI Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing
CEPEI Centro de Pensamiento Estratégico Internacional
CSA Central Statistics Agency (Ethiopia)
CTGAP Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data
CTGAP Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data
DAC Development Assistance Committee of the OECD
DANE National Administrative Department of Statistics (Colombia)
DSSI Debt Service Suspension Initiative
EO Earth observation
EU European Union
FABLE Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and Energy Consortium
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
FELD Food, Environment, Land and Development Action Tracker
G20 Group of Twenty (intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union)
G7 Group of Seven (intergovernmental forum comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
GDP Gross domestic product
GeoGlAM Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring Initiative
GIS Geographic information system
HIC High-income-country
HLAB High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism
ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization
ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability
ICS International Continence Society
IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
ILO International Labour Organisation
ILO International Labour Organization
IMF International Monetary Fund
IMF International Monetary Fund
IMO International Maritime Organization
ITU and the International Telecommunication Union
LAC Latin American countries
LIC Low-income country
LMIC Lower-middle-income country
LSMS Living Standards Measurement Study
MDB Multilateral Development Bank
MENA Middle East and North Africa
Acronyms andAbbreviations

ix
MRIO Multi-regional input-output
NBS National Bureau of Statistics
NGO Non-governmental organisation
NSO National Statistic Office
ODA Official Development Assistance
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
SDG Sustainable Development Goal
SDR Sustainable Development Report
SDSN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
SIDS Small Island Developing States
STATIN Statistical Institute of Jamaica
TReNDS Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics
UCLG United Cit ies and Local Governments
UHC Universal Health Coverage
UMIC Upper-middle-income country
UN DESA Department of Economic and Social Affairs
UN The United Nations
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNFPA United Nations Population Fund
UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization
United Nations-HABITAT United Nations Human Settlements Programme
UNWTO World Tourism Organization
UPU Universal Postal Union
VNR Voluntary National Review
WBG World Bank Group
WFP World Food Programme ().
WHO World Health Organisation
WHO World Health Organization
WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization
WMO World Meteorological Organization
WTO World Trade Organization
Acronyms and Abbreviations

How to Achieve the SDGs:
The SDSN Framework
1

1
HowtoAchieve the SDGs:The SDSN Framework
By Members of the SDSN Leadership Council
Part 1
H.E. Reem Al Hashimy
Dr. Sultan Al Jaber
Dr. Anthony Annett
H.E. Mr. Shaukat Aziz
Ms. Chandrika Bahadur
Mr. Peter Bakker
Mr. Sam Barratt
Dr. Eugenie Birch
Ms. Irina Bokova
Ms. Micheline Calmy-Rey
Dr. Joshua Castellino
Tan Sri Dato’Seri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah
Prof. Kieth Rethy Chhem
Ms. Jacqueline Corbelli
Mr. Ramu Damodaran
Mr. Jack Dangermond
Ms. Bineta Diop
Mr. David Donoghue
Mr. Hendrik du Toit
Mr. Jan Egeland
H.E. Metropolitan Emmanuel
Ms. Patricia Espinosa
H.E. Leonel Fernández Reyna
Dr. Xiaolan Fu
Dr. Stuart Gibb
Dr. Ken Giller
Ms. Jennifer Gross
Sir Andrew Haines
H.E. Tarja Halonen
Dr. James Hansen
Mr. Olli-Pekka Heinonen
Dr. Naoko Ishii
Mr. Vuk Jeremić
Dr. Pavel Kabat
Mr. Niclas Kjellström-Matseke
Dr. Israel Klabin
Mr. Adolf Kloke-Lesch
Dr. Siva Kumari
Mr. Markos Kyprianou
Dr. Upmanu Lall
Dr. Felipe Larraín
Lord Richard Layard
Dr. Frannie Léautier
Dr. Klaus Leisinger
Dr. Justin Yifu Lin
Dr. Gordon Liu
Mr. Siamak Loni
Mr. Mai Lu
Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Mrs. Graça Machel
Dr. Julia Marton-Lefèvre
Dr. Ramesh Mashelkar
Dr. Vladimir Mau
Dr. Mariana Mazzucato
H.E. Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé
Ms. Sam Mostyn
Ms. Claude Nahon
Mr. Eddie Ndopu
Dr. Rebecca Nelson
Dr. Joanna Newman
Dr. Amadou Niang
Ms. Michelle Nunn
Ms. Cherie Nursalim
Mr. Joaquim Oliveira Martins
Mr. Luiz Eduardo Osorio
Ms. Roza Otunbayeva
Ms. Mari Pangestu
H.E. George Papandreou
Mr. Antonio Pedro
Mr. Paul Polman
Mr. Stefano Quintarelli
Ms. Sabina Ratti
Dr. Srinath Reddy
Dr. Aromar Revi
Dr. Teresa Ribera
Dr. Angelo Riccaboni
Dr. Johan Rockström
Rabbi David Rosen
Dr. Joanna Rubinstein
Dr. Jeffrey Sachs
Monsignor Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo
HH Muhammad Sanusi II
Dr. Elly Schlein
Dr. Guido Schmidt-Traub
Dr. Andrew Steer
Dr. John Thwaites
Dr. Lena Treschow-Torell
Dr. Laurence Tubiana
Mr. Ted Turner
Dr. Albert van Jaarsveld
Dr. William Vendley
Dr. Virgilio Viana
Dr. Martin Visbeck
Mr. Forest Whitaker
Dr. Lan Xue
Dr. Hirokazu Yoshikawa
Dr. Hania Zlotnick
Members ofthe SDSN Leadership Council

2 Sustainable Development Report 2023 Implementing the SDG Stimulus
Overview
1. General Assembly Economic and Social Council, Progress towards the
Sustainable Development Goals: Towards a Rescue Plan for People and
Planet, Report of the Secretary-General, Special Edition, May 2023.
https://hlpf.un.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/SDG%20Progress%20
Report%20Special%20Edition.pdf
2. UnitedNationsSecretary-General’sSDGStimulustoDeliverAgenda2030,
Feb 2023. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/
uploads/2023/02/SDG-Stimulus-to-Deliver-Agenda-2030.pdf
This statement, issued by Members of the Leadership
Council of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions
Network (SDSN), builds on the work of the SDSN’s
Secretariat and its global programs, as well as the work of
its 1,900 member institutions, spanning all world regions.
The grim reality is that at the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda,
the SDGs are far off track. At the global level, averaging
across countries, not a single SDG is currently projected to
be met by 2030, with the poorest countries struggling the
most. And global cooperation has ebbed as geopolitical
tensions have risen. In response to this situation, United
Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has urged
world leaders to come together at the 2023 SDG Summit
in September to deliver a“Rescue Plan for People and
Planet”.1
SDSN offers the following recommendations
to accelerate progress over the remaining seven years
to 2030, and to set even more ambitious targets to be
achieved by 2050 under the SDG framework.
As the world’s nations prepare to meet in September to
review the progress the world has made so far towards
achieving the SDGs, at the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda,
SDSN emphasizes six areas for immediate action.
I. Most urgently, UN Member States should adopt an
SDG Stimulus, to close the massive financing gap
faced by many developing economies. As called for by
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres,2
the SDG Stimulus plan has five main components:
1. Increased funding from the multilateral develop-
ment banks (MDBs) and public development banks
(PDBs) to low- and middle-income countries, linked
to investments in the SDGs;
2. Enhancement of relief for countries facing debt
distress;
3. Expansion of liquidity by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and major central banks;
4. Empowerment and expansion of the specialized global
funds; and
5. Expansion of private philanthropy with a focus on ultra-
high-net-worth individuals.
II. UN Member States must endorse a deep and overdue
reform of the global financial architecture. SDSN
identifies six priorities for this reform:
1. Greatly increased funding for national and
subnational governments and private businesses in
the emerging economies, especially the low-income
countries (LICs) and lower-middle-income countries
(LMICs), to carry out needed SDG actions;
2. Revision of the credit-rating system and debt-
sustainability metrics to facilitate long-term
sustainable development;
3. Revision of the liquidity structures for LICs and
LMICs, especially regarding sovereign debt, to
forestall self-fulfilling banking and balance-of-
payments crises;
4. Creation of ambitious, internationally-agreed
criteria for sustainable finance that are mandatory
for all public financial institutions in high-income
countries (HICs), middle-income countries (MICs),
and LICs alike.
5. Alignment of private business investment flows
in all countries with the SDGs, through improved
national planning, regulation, reporting, and
oversight.
6. A reform of current institutional frameworks and
development of new and innovative mechanisms
to improve the quality and speed of deployment of
international cooperation, and the monitoring of
progress in an open and timely manner.
Part 1. How to Achieve the SDGs: The SDSN Framework

Overview
3
III. All UN Member States should adopt long-term
sustainable development pathways that provide
a stepwise and medium- to long-term approach to
guide their sustainable development policies, not
only to 2030 but to 2050, with particular focus on
gender equality, social inclusion, and the principal
of‘leave no one behind’. We are facing a long-term
set of challenges: resolving them must be the global
priority for a generation to come. SDSN recommends
that national pathways should include six key
transformations:3
1. Universal quality education and innovation-based
economy: a massive increase in investments in
quality education and in science and technology
innovation systems;
2. Universal health access and coverage: an expansion
of health coverage to ensure universal access to
both preventative and curative services;
3. Zero-carbon energy systems: the transition by 2050
of energy systems to net-zero emissions;
4. Sustainable ecosystems, sustainable agriculture, and
climate resilience: the transition to sustainable land
use, healthy diets, and resilience to ongoing climate
change;
5. Sustainable cities: urban infrastructure and services
to ensure productive, safe, inclusive, and healthful
cities for a world that will be around 70 percent
urbanized in 2050;
6. Transformation to universal digital access and
services: actions by governments at all levels to
ensure universal access to digital services including
online payments, finance, telemedicine, online
education, and others, while ensuring privacy and
online safety.
3. Sachs, J.D., Schmidt-Traub, G., Mazzucato, M. et al. Six Transformations
to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Nat Sustain 2, 805–814
(2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0352-9
IV. All UN Member States should present, at regular
intervals, their national SDG frameworks in the form
of Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs). To date, 188
of the 193 UN Member States have already presented
VNRs. Five countries (Haiti, Myanmar, South Sudan,
the United States, and Yemen) have yet to do so, and
should prepare to do so with urgency.
V. All UN Member States should recommit to peaceful
cooperation, in the service of the SDGs and all other
multilateral agreements. Current geopolitical tensions
are hindering SDG achievement and diverting
financial and human resources away from sustainable
development. Global spending on armaments,
estimated at US$2.2 trillion in 2022, dwarfs financing
for the SDGs and climate change. SDSN calls on
all nations to renounce violence, live within the
United Nations Charter, and settle conflicts through
diplomacy, especially through the UN Security Council.
VI. UN Member States should commit to accelerating
SDG progress to 2030, and to setting even more
ambitious SDG targets to 2050, incorporating the
recent Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework and
the High Seas Treaty.
The report that follows offers SDSN’s update on the state
of the SDGs at their mid-point, highlighting the growing
dangers of adverse environmental, social, and economic
“tipping points”and identifying key ways that the global
community can and should accelerate SDG progress.
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Introduction
The SDGs are facing strong headwinds. Despite significant
efforts in some places, national governments on all
continents have fallen short in integrating the SDGs
into national policies and public investments. Moreover,
societal polarization, populism, and growing geopolitical
conflict are hindering the global cooperation needed
to achieve the SDGs. Civil society, including academic
institutions, is becoming more constrained in the midst of
intensifying political tensions. The international financial
architecture is failing to channel global savings to SDG
investments at the needed pace and scale.
We emphasize that achieving the SDGs rests on five pillars
of good governance:
1. Preparing long-term SDG pathways to guide public
policy;
2. Ensuring SDG financing at the necessary scale and
timing;
3. Promoting global cooperation and reducing
geopolitical conflict and tension;
4. Supporting innovation to broaden social inclusion and
environmental sustainability;
5. Regular reporting on SDG progress and performance.
The SDGs are not only a public policy framework; they are
an ethical imperative. They are grounded in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which celebrates its 75th
anniversary this year. The SDGs are based on its core
premises; that“All human beings are born free and equal in
dignity and rights … and should act towards one another
in a spirit of brotherhood,”and that“it is essential to promote
thedevelopmentoffriendlyrelationsbetweennations.”
As the Universal Declaration makes clear, and the SDGs
make explicit, social justice and sustainable development
require the full realization of the rights of all people. This
includes equality of opportunities for girls and women
(SDG 5), respect for the rights and voice of Indigenous
peoples around the world, and a much larger role for
young people, who will face the consequences of our (in)
actions throughout the 21st
century.
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
(SDSN) is dedicated to finding and amplifying practical
solutions to achieve the SDGs and closely-related
global goals (such as the Paris climate agreement and
the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework). We
emphasize that all these global goals are interrelated
and must be achieved together. Members of the SDSN
Leadership Council offer the following assessments and
recommendations to the UN Member States, the United
Nations Agencies, international finance institutions,
business, and civil society, based on more than a decade
of research, measurement, advising, and partnerships
across the world.
4. Hansen, James et al. 2002. Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Climate
Response Time. http:/www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2022/
EarthEnergyImbalance.22December2022.pdf
Dire shortfalls in meeting the SDGs
The SDGs are seriously off track (Figure 1.1). SDG progress
was already very slow in the five years to 2020. According
to the annual SDG Index, global achievement of the SDGs
rose only slightly, from 64 percent in 2015 to 66 percent
in 2019 – far too slowly to meet the goals by 2030,
and with highly uneven progress within and between
countries. Then with the onset of the pandemic, progress
stopped. As of 2022, the global SDG Index is below 67%.
At current trends, based on simple projections, there is a
risk that the gap in SDG outcomes between HICs and LICs
will be wider in 2030 (29 points) than it was in 2015 (28
points). This means that we are at risk of losing a decade
of progress towards convergence globally (Figure 1.2).
The multiple geopolitical crises in the world today will no
doubt place further obstacles on the path to 2030. If we
look at each of the 17 individual SDGs, not a single SDG is
projected to be met at the global level.
The world is also seriously off track to meet the Paris
agreement climate targets and SDG 13 (Figure 1.3).
Global warming as of 2022 stood at 1.2°C, with warming
continuing at more than 0.3°C per decade.4
At this rate,
the likelihood of overshooting 1.5°C, even within a
decade, is very strong. According to the UNEP Emissions
Gap Report 2022, current policies put the world on track

Dire shortfalls in meeting the SDGs
5
to reaching a disastrous 2.8°C warming by 2100.5
Current
Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets, if
implemented, would still lead to around 2.4°C warming
by 2100. Even taking the net-zero pledges of many
countries into account, best-case scenarios given current
pledges would lead to around 1.8°C warming by 2100.
Biodiversity targets (SDG 15 and targets agreed under the
CBD) are also at grave risk. All dimensions of biodiversity,
including species abundance, species diversity, and
the functioning of ecosystems, are under threat. It has
been announced that the current loss of species rate
is 1,000–10,000 times more than the natural extinction
rate. A combination of land-use change (e.g., dramatic
increases of tropical deforestation), global warming, and
pollution are driving more and more species, including
entire families and orders of species, towards mass
extinction. At the same time, Indigenous peoples who
5. UNEP. 2022. Emissions Gap Report. Available at https://www.unep.org/
resources/emissions-gap-report-2022.
have been safeguarding and stewarding these resources
for millennia are facing greater threats than ever.
Water scarcity affects more than 40% of the world’s
population. An estimated 1.8 billion people depend
on drinking water contaminated by human waste.
Unsustainable water management practices, including
chemical discharges into water supply systems for
irrigation, affect the functioning of ecosystems services.
Global resource consumption assessments for rare
earth elements are critical. Although reserves of these
elements do not exist in concentrated clusters – which
make them inefficient for mining – certain countries
are quite dominant in this field, producing 98% of the
world’s supply. As demand for rare earth elements is
increasing tremendously, their scarcity is becoming
more evident.
Ocean goods and services (SDG 14 and the High Seas
Treaty) are at severe risk due to full- to over-exploitation
Figure 1.1
SDG Index world average: pre-pandemic trend and trend needed to achieve the SDGs by 2030
Note: Pre-pandemic trend corresponds to the extrapolated annual growth rate over the period 2015–2019. See Part 2 for further details.
Source: Authors analysis
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
World Average Pre-pandemic trend Trend needed to achieve the SDGs
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of nearly 90% of global fish stocks.6
The crises facing
our oceans are unabated, multidimensional, and
complex. These crises include the destruction of
fisheries through over-fishing and the deployment of
destructive technologies (such as ocean trawling); the
destruction of coastal wetland ecosystems; the mass
pollution of estuaries through fluxes of nitrogen and
phosphorus (causing eutrophication) and other chemical
pollutants; acidification of the oceans (with an increase
of 30% over the last 50 years due to rising atmospheric
concentrations of CO2
7
); pollution of the high seas
(including plastic waste and microplastics in marine
food chains); the slowdown of ocean circulation due to
climate change; explosions of invasive marine species
due to increased shipping facilities; and rising sea levels
(including the growing possibility of a rapid, multi-metre
sea-level rise caused by the disintegration of parts of the
Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets). Inland fisheries are
also experiencing similar challenges.
6. The World Bank. 2017. Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals.
https://datatopics.worldbank.org/sdgatlas/archive/2017/SDG-14-life-
below-water.html
7. Smithsonian Institution. 2018. Ocean Acidification. https://ocean.
si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/ocean-acidification
The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit raised many urgent
concerns around improving the sustainability, affordability,
and quality of food across the world (SDG 2). Overall, the
Food Systems Summit highlighted the need for an inte-
grated and global approach to addressing food systems
challenges, including food security, rural development, the
reduction of food waste, transparency along the value chain,
sustainable diets, and the fight against climate change.
Providing quality education (SDG 4) for all children is
perhaps the single most important key to achieving
sustainable development in the long term. The UN
General Assembly’s Transforming Education Summit
held in September 2022 was a critical meeting to spur
national and global efforts to transform education to
give all people the skills and knowledge to end poverty,
protect the environment, and build peaceful and inclusive
societies.8
And yet, the truth remains that hundreds of
millions of children are either out of school entirely or
receiving such an under-funded and under-resourced
education that they are failing to achieve basic literacy
and numeracy even after several years of education.
8. UN Transforming Education Summit, 2022, https://www.un.org/en/
transforming-education-summit
Figure 1.2
Observed and projected gaps in SDG Index score between HICs and LICs (in percentage points)
Note: Projected gap by 2030 is based on extrapolation of annual growth rate on the SDG Index over the period 2019-2021.
Pre-pandemic projected gap is based on an extrapolation of SDG Index annual growth rates over the period 2015-2019.
Source: Authors analysis
Gap in 2015
Gap in 2022
Projected gap by 2030
(current trend)
Projected gap by 2030
(pre-pandemic trend)
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Planetary boundaries and geophysical tipping points
7
Planetary boundaries and
geophysical tipping points
Humanity is eroding the biological and physical
resilience of Earth’s physical systems by transgressing
environmental limits that endanger their functioning: the
“planetary boundaries”that regulate the Earth system.
The latest scientific assessments indicate that six of the
nine planetary boundaries have been breached. The
scientific evidence points to global risks well beyond
climate change, including the loss of biodiversity
and ecological functions, changes in natural land
use configuration, overuse of both green and blue
water, overloading of nitrogen and phosphorus, and
widespread chemical pollution.
One of the most ominous aspects of this rampant, and still
uncontrolled, heedlessness is the likelihood of reaching
multiple dire tipping points in the Earth’s physical systems.
Scientists have identified a large number of extremely
dangerous potential tipping points, with linkages and
dependencies across the different planetary boundaries.
Tipping points are characterized by a non-linear response
to gradual human forcings. Human-induced global
warming could hit several tipping points that may in turn
lead to further feedbacks (amplifications) of the warming.
For example, as the Earth warms, sea ice melts, reducing
the reflectance of solar radiation back into space and
accelerating the warming. Similarly, melting permafrost
in the Tundra could release massive stores of CO2
and
methane, leading to rapid further warming. Another
Figure 1.3
Projected global warming underalternative policy scenarios9
2°C pathway
1.5°C pathway
Current policies scenario:
2.8°C (66% chance)
Estimated global
warming over the
twenty-first century
Conditional NDC scenario:
2.4°C (66% chance)
Unconditional NDC scenario:
2.6°C (66% chance)
Unconditional NDC scenario with net-zero
targets: 1.8°C (66% chance)
GtCO2e
Conditional NDC scenario with net-zero
targets: 1.8°C (66% chance)
2010 policies scenario
Area of figure 4.2
Indicative emissions gap to 2°C and 1.5°C
pathways for the conditional NDC scenario
Indicative emissions gap to 2°C and 1.5°C
pathways for the unconditional NDC scenario
20
10
0
30
40
50
60
70
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050
Source: UNEP, Emissions Gap Report 2022
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tipping point would be the collapse of the world’s
rainforests due to warming (and associated drying) in the
Amazon, Congo, and other tropical regions, which would
release a massive new load of CO2
into the atmosphere.
Others include slowing or stopping the global ocean
(thermohaline) circulation, and significant loss of coral
reefs.10
Each of these potential tipping points would lead
to global disaster on an unprecedented scale.
The interconnected environmental, social, and health
challenges can be characterized as a planetary health
crisis, caused by human activities such as industrialization,
urbanization, deforestation, and the burning of fossil
fuels. The consequences of inaction in the face of this
crisis are significant and far-reaching, affecting both the
natural systems that sustain life on Earth and the well-
being of human societies.
9. UNEP. 2022. Emissions Gap Report. Available at https://www.unep.org/
resources/emissions-gap-report-2022.
10. David I. Armstrong McKay, et al., Exceeding 1.5°C global warming
could trigger multiple climate tipping points. Science 377, eabn7950
(2022). DOI:10.1126/science.abn7950
Grave dangers ofsocial tipping
points
Unless the SDGs are actively pursued, geophysical tipping
points combined with technological disruptions could
ignite disastrous social conflicts within and between
nations. We must therefore acknowledge the real risk of
negative“social tipping points”beyond which peaceful
governance and co-existence breaks down, as it did in
World War I and World War II.
We firmly believe that international cooperation together
with the achievement of the SDGs is the best preventative
to this dire and growing risk, and represent an opportunity
to create positive social tipping points: for example,
through equal access to high-quality education (SDG 4),
and by fighting all forms of inequalities, including income
and wealth inequalities (SDG 10).
We see across societies that inequalities are rising.
Environmental crises weigh most heavily on the poorest
and most marginalized individuals. At the same time,
technological advances such as artificial intelligence and
robotics have the potential to eliminate many working-
class and professional jobs. The COVID-19 pandemic also
severely depleted trust in governments. Many societies,
and not only the poorest ones, are facing increased crises
of governance, marked by political and social instability,
general strikes, and a further loss of public confidence in
government. Although all governments are in principle
committed to economic justice as enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to the SDG
tenets of‘leave no one behind’and‘reach the furthest
behind first’, too few are living up to these commitments,
especially as powerful groups block adequate public
support for weaker groups.
In her 2022 report on the SDGs, E. Tendayi Achiume –
UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism,
racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
– noted that racism and racial discrimination are key
barriers to sustainable development, and called attention
to the failure of some States to collect disaggregated data
on race, ethnicity, indigeneity, and migration status in the
context of the 2030 Agenda. She noted however that,
while disrupting the dynamic of racially discriminatory
underdevelopment may require a greater transformation
than is possible at this moment, the SDGs held untapped
potential to advance both development and non-
discrimination. The report’s recommendations include
calling for more racially-disaggregated SDG indicators
and for dialogue with stakeholders on how to use these
indicators to better allocate resources and prioritize the
inclusion of marginalized peoples.11
The geopolitical situation today is certainly the most
conflictual in decades, perhaps since World War II. The
rise of China has led to great tension between it and the
11. Achiume, T. E. (2022). 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
the Sustainable Development Goals and the fight against racial
discrimination. Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary
forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance. A/HRC/50/60 (13 June–8 July 2022), available from
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5060-
2030-agenda-sustainable-development-sustainable-development.

Investing in the SDGs
9
United States, and much of the world is trying to adjust
to the strains between these two major economies.
The disastrous war in Ukraine has further destabilized
and divided the world’s nations. There are calls in many
countries to increase military budgets, even as the SDGs
are woefully underfunded at home and internationally.
New records on global military spending were reached in
2022, totaling US$2.2 trillion, even as the most basic social
services were under grave stress in many countries.
Economic tipping points could accompany or be
triggered by environmental, social, governance, and
geopolitical tipping points. Banking failures are a prime
example of an economic tipping point: the national
economy deteriorates to the point where a financial crisis
is triggered, in turn pushing the economy into a massive
downturn. This was seen in the Great Depression of the
1930s and the Great Recession of 2008. Similarly, extreme
poverty can lead to a collapse of tax revenues, followed by
government bankruptcy and further economic collapse, a
syndrome that now threatens dozens of poor countries.
12. Sachs JD, Schmidt-Traub G, Lafortune G., 2020. Speaking truth to
power about the SDGs, Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/
d41586-020-02373-7
Investing in the SDGs
Despite this ominous news, the SDGs are still achievable.
None of their objectives are beyond our reach.12
Yes,
the world is off-track, but that is all the more reason to
double-down on the goals, rather than surrendering to
human-made shortfalls in achieving them. Our future
remains in our hands.
At their core, the SDGs are an investment agenda. In the
most basic terms, the world must devote an increased
portion of current output to building up sustainable
capital assets for the future, and must deploy such assets
effectively. Sustainable capital assets are long-lasting
capital resources that can enable the world to meet the
agreed goals of economic well-being, social justice, and
environmental sustainability. The world must both shift
its current investment patterns and increase the overall
investment flow in order to build the future we want.
Development practitioners have identified eight major
kinds of capital assets:
1. Human capital: The skills and health of a productive
citizenry, supported by universal health access
and coverage, quality education, shared data and
knowledge, promotion of a culture of peace and non-
violence, global citizenship, and the appreciation of
cultural diversity.
2. Infrastructure: Energy production and distribution,
land and sea transport, telecommunications, digital
information services, public buildings (e.g., schools and
hospitals), and safe water and sanitation.
3. Natural capital: The capacity and healthy functioning
of ecosystems, to be protected by ending human-
induced climate change, protecting biodiversity,
sustainably managing freshwater resources, and
eliminating toxic pollutants.
4. Innovation capital: The stock of intellectual property
and data resulting from public and private research and
development, creative cultural works, and responsibly
governed and managed emerging technologies.
5. Business capital: Goods and services of true social
value derived from utilizing the machinery, buildings,
information resources, and other capital assets that
underpin business productivity.
6. Social capital: Social trust and pro-social values, good
governance and justice, freedom of speech and the
press, trusted scientific capabilities, and international
cooperation.
7. Urban capital: Spatial human settlements, notably
in urban areas, that drive and support productive and
creative interactions across the other seven capital
assets.
8. Cultural capital: Appreciation of the diversity of
cultures, value systems, languages, the traditional
knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples, and artistic
expressions.
These capital assets are complementary; that is, they
work together in a mutually-supportive manner. A
business cannot be productive if its workers lack skills
and health, or if there is no electricity, piped water,
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transport, or digital access. A society cannot function
peacefully if there is a breakdown of social capital.
A city cannot function without water. Challenges
such as decarbonization cannot be met with existing
technologies alone, and so depend on continued
innovation and scientific research, especially in countries
where investment is low. There is no hope of achieving
global food security for more than eight billion people
unless Earth’s natural capital is protected. And there is
no hope for global peace unless there is respect for, and
investment in, cultural capital and cultural diversity.
To achieve the SDGs, the world must invest boldly,
amply, and consistently in all eight kinds of capital.
These investments must involve both governments
and corporations. For example, while business capital is
mainly the purview of the private sector, human capital
is mainly the purview of the public sector. Governments
too must take the lead in protecting natural capital,
while civil society especially must promote social and
cultural capital, including mutual understanding across
cultures and nations. Infrastructure capital and innovation
capital tend to be financed roughly equally by the public
and private sectors. For example, governments tend
to finance power transmission grids, while the private
sector tends to finance power generation. Governments
generally finance basic scientific research, while
businesses focus on applied RD.
Parallel to investing in the SDGs, the world needs to
stop investing in activities that threaten planetary
boundaries, destroy human and natural capital, and harm
social cohesion. Curtailing the extraction and use of
fossil fuels is of paramount importance. To curb harmful
investments, regulatory measures, including fair and
sustainable taxation and the dismantling of unsustainable
subsidies, need to be an integral element of the SDG
investment agenda.
In 2022, the United Nations Secretary-General appointed
a High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism,
with a mandate to develop a list of concrete, actionable
recommendations to improve international cooperation
and advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development. The Board’s 2023 report lists six areas for
action that are directly aligned with the SDGs and SDSN’s
recommendations: rebuilding trust in multilateralism,
safeguarding our planet and its people, scaling up and
improving the efficacy of global finance, improving data
systems and their governance, and promoting peace.13
13. High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism (HLAB),
2022. A Breakthrough for People and Planet: Effective and Inclusive
Global Governance for Today and the Future, https://www.
highleveladvisoryboard.org/breakthrough
Failures (and some successes) of
national SDG governance
The most important level of decision-making remains the
nation-state. Nation-states hold the primary responsibility
for achieving the SDGs. They are members of the United
Nations and the signatories of United Nations treaties.
They hold juridical responsibility for implementing
treaty agreements and the rest of the United Nations
architecture, including the United Nations Charter, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the SDGs.
National governments must ensure both the domestic
implementation of the SDGs, including the reduction of
negative spillovers, and international implementation by
building a global governance and financial architecture
that delivers the SDGs. Crucially, national government
must also work with subnational governments to
implement the SDG agenda at the local level, including
sustainable urban infrastructure, delivery of social services,
and ensuring safe communities.
Virtually all governments of the world have embraced
the SDGs in principle. 188 of 193 UN Member States have
submitted VNRs for comment by the other nations. Only
five countries, notably the United States, Haiti, Myanmar,
South Sudan, and Yemen, have never presented VNRs.
Four of these countries are wracked by violence and
poverty. The case of the United States stands as a glaring
exception.
The Nordic countries and European Union have shown
considerable support for the SDGs. So too have many
developing countries in the G20. However, many
governments of developing countries have made

Failures (and some successes) of national SDG governance
11
only low to moderate SDG commitments, although
of course these countries have also not received the
financing needed to support the Goals.14
In many cases,
national SDG strategies remain disconnected from core
government policies and priorities. These are some of the
findings of SDSN’s annual (2023) survey on government
efforts and commitments for the SDGs, which is
conducted in close cooperation with our global network
of experts and practitioners. Of 74 governments analyzed,
we see large differences in terms of government efforts
and commitments (see Part 3).
The greatest responsibility for achieving the SDGs and
safeguarding the planetary boundaries lies with the G20
members. These countries represent more than 80% of
global GDP, around 70% of the world’s forests, more than
60% of the earth’s population, and more than 50% of its
landmass. The G20 countries account for 90% of global
lignite and coal extraction and more than 60% of global
oil and gas production.
The United States, as the world’s biggest economy in
terms of GDP at market prices and its biggest oil and
gas producer, has a responsibility both to itself and
to the rest of the world to immediately embark on an
ambitious transformation towards the SDGs, as well as
towards other global climate and biodiversity goals. With
the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden government
announced its intention to reduce carbon emissions by
roughly 40 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, although
there are growing concerns that outcomes will lag behind
these goals, due in part to the legislation’s lack of an
agreed national financing strategy other than tax credits.
This and other policy measures fall short, however, of the
scope and ambition of the SDGs. Overall, the United States
has so far shown very little commitment to the SDGs. We
call on the United States to formulate an SDG action plan
and to present a VNR to the High-Level Political Forum.
The European Union – the world’s second-largest
economy and its major lignite producer – has produced
14. Lafortune, G., Fuller, G., Bermont Diaz, L., Kloke-Lesch, A., Koundouri,
P., Riccaboni, A. (2022). Achieving the SDGs: Europe’s Compass in a
Multipolar World. Europe Sustainable Development Report 2022. SDSN
and SDSN Europe. France: Paris. https://eu-dashboards.sdgindex.org
the European Green Deal (EGD), which is exemplary in
many regards. Many EU member states demonstrate a
high or moderate SDG commitment. The EGD embraces
an EU-wide set of goals, timelines to 2050, and financing
strategies across major dimensions of the SDGs: energy
decarbonization, climate resilience, circular economy (to
cut pollution), sustainable agriculture (the“farm-to-fork”
strategy), digital access, and innovation. EU-wide financial
resources, notably the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility,
were mobilized to support the EGD. The European
Regional Development Fund, which provides the EU
cohesion funds, is also directed towards the EGD. The
Horizon Europe program and EU Missions in Horizon
Europe catalyze the EU’s efforts to stimulate innovation
and identify concrete solutions for the EGD. However,
the EGD and EU policies at large lack a comprehensive
alignment to the SDGs, politically agreed targets for many
SDG indicators, and clarity on how to achieve the SDGs.
The EU has also highlighted the strategic role of the
private sector in achieving the SDGs, by implementing a
new directive asking companies to publish sustainability
reports and, in particular in the food sector, by promoting
the“Code of Conduct on Responsible Food Business and
Marketing Practices”, a tool for setting out the actions that
agri-food companies can voluntarily commit to in order
to tangibly improve and communicate their sustainability
performance. SDSN’s Europe SDR emphasizes the
importance of living up to the ambitions of the EGD
and the SDGs, both inside the EU as well as in the EU’s
foreign actions, despite the multiple crises faced.15
In
July 2023, the EU is set to present its first Union-wide
voluntary review at the United Nations. This presents a
good opportunity for the EU to send a strong message
to the international community, and to demonstrate its
commitment to and leadership on the SDGs.
China, as the world’s largest economy in purchasing-
power-adjusted terms and its biggest coal producer,
intends to implement the SDGs by integrating them
into its medium and long-term national development
strategies, such as its five-year plans. China has already
presented two VNRs to the HLPF (2016 and 2021). The
15. ibid.
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14th five-year plan referred to the 2030 Agenda mainly
in the context of international cooperation. Recently,
China has reiterated its support for the SDGs, such as in
greening its Belt and Road Initiative and launching the
Global Development Initiative as a worldwide effort. A key
measure for China will be the explicit integration of the
SDGs’domestic and international implementation into the
15th five-year plan (2026–2030).
Some other G20 countries have shown weak
commitments to the SDGs in recent years. Many of the
poor performers, such as Brazil, recently elected new
governments that have staked out a far more ambitious
position vis-à-vis the SDGs. We urge all G20 governments
to show the leadership required of them.
Most of the low-income and lower-middle income
countries, home to more than the half of humanity, face
major challenges in achieving most of the SDGs by 2030.
Many of them lack an adequately high SDG commitment,
and almost all lack access to the necessary financial means
to implement the SDGs.
At the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, all countries, poorer
and richer alike, should use the half-way momentum to
self-critically review and revise their national strategies,
using the principles of the 2030 Agenda (transformative,
integrated, inclusive, leaving no one behind) as a yardstick.
Across the globe, we need to leave the comfort zones of
political leaders and question the obstacles of outmoded
ideologies, habits, and weak governance. We also need
responsible business leadership leaving their comfort
zone to establish SDG-compatible business models and
appropriate business governance.16
16. Leisinger, Klaus M. Integrity in Business and
Society, CRT publications, Minneapolis, United States, December 2021.
Failures ofglobal governance
Achieving the SDGs will require a transformative global
approach. Yet current methods and mechanisms for
implementing the Agenda largely reflect pre-2015 world
realities and are far from meeting the universality and
transformative ambition of the SDGs. Four basic failures
stand out: First, implementation is largely left to the
national level and on a voluntary basis, without effective
multilateral enforcement mechanisms in place. Second,
developed countries are not being held to account,
neither for their adverse spillovers, nor for ensuring
adequate flows of financing for sustainable development.
Third, the rules governing trade and international
finance are not geared towards the SDGs. For example,
globalized trade rules for‘cleantech’could accelerate
the energy transition and offer protections to workers,
however such rules have not been negotiated or agreed
upon. Unifying international business ecosystems could
similarly improve industrial supply chains, particularly
by leveraging artificial intelligence. And fourth, national
governments typically lack‘vertical’coordination with
subnational governments for SDG implementation.
Both the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement
established mechanisms to encourage and monitor
their implementation by nation-states. However,
experience so far with VNRs and Nationally Determined
Contributions (NDCs), respectively, demonstrate that
these mechanisms – despite some progress – have not
delivered the effort necessary to achieve global goals.
Even the progress on consistent national reporting on
SDG indicators is inadequate. There are no assessments
or recommendations by the respective secretariats or
decision-making bodies on the adequacy or further
enhancement of national implementation, let alone
measures of enforcement. This is especially important
for those SDGs where national (non-)compliance has
significant externalities for the global community and
avoiding threats to the planetary boundaries. There are
lessons to be learned from international agreements
in other fields like trade, human rights, or international
peace and security; these can be translated and refined
to support sustainable development.

Failures of the global financial architecture
13
Failures ofthe global financial
architecture
The“global financial architecture”(GFA) refers to the
complex system of public and private finance that
channels the world’s saving to the world’s investment. The
GFA includes multilateral institutions (for example, IMF and
World Bank), national and local budgets, public borrowing
and debts, and private equity and debt financing. Financial
institutions that intermediate savings and investment play
a key role, including national and multilateral development
banks (publicly owned banks that borrow from capital
markets to on-lend funds to public and private entities),
sovereign wealth funds, private-sector banks, insurance
funds, pension funds, asset management funds, venture
capital, credit rating agencies, and others.
The global financial architecture falls short in the following
six ways:
1. Deep, chronic, and crippling under-investment in
virtually all low-income countries (LICs) and lower-
middle-income countries (LMICs). In 2022, Investment
per person in the LICs averaged a meagre US$175 per
person, compared with US$11,535 per person in the
HICs. (Table 1.1). In fact, investment as a share of GDP
was lower in the LICs (20.9%) than in all other income
categories. The poor are consequently languishing in
poverty.
2. Most LICs and LMICs (and many small-island
developing states [SIDS], including those that are
UMICs) lack the credit ratings to borrow on acceptable
terms (Table 1.2)
3. LICs, LMICs, and SIDS are highly vulnerable to self-
fulfilling liquidity crises and balance of payments
crises, making it nearly impossible for these countries
to implement a long-term sustainable investment
strategy.
4. HICs are able to mobilize vast financial resources
very quickly, as seen during the 2008 financial crisis,
the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. Yet they are
not prepared to mobilize such resources for global
sustainable development, despite the urgency and
previous promises regarding development assistance
and climate financing.
5. Private capital markets continue to direct large flows
of private saving to unsustainable technologies and
practices, delaying decarbonization of the world’s
energy system and underpinning destruction of the
world’s ecosystems.
6. International cooperation is trapped by bureaucratic
institutional frameworks that reduce the speed,
efficacy, and efficiency of funding to meet the SDGs,
and that fail to provide the framework for large-scale
SDG financing.
It is widely recognized that the world needs to overhaul
the GFA. Such an overhaul should address the failures
above and aim to achieve six objectives:
1. Greatly increase funding to national and subnational
governments and private businesses in the emerging
economies, especially the LICs and LMICs, to carry out
the needed investments.
2. Revise the credit rating system and debt sustainability
metrics to facilitate long-term sustainable
development.
3. Revise liquidity structures for LICs,LMICs, and SIDS,
especially regarding sovereign debts, to forestall self-
fulfilling banking and balance-of-payments crises.
4. Create ambitious and internationally-agreed upon
criteria for sustainable finance that are mandatory for
all public financial institutions in HICs, MICs, and LICs
alike.
5. Align private business investment flows in all countries
with the SDGs, through improved national planning,
regulation, reporting, and oversight.
6. Reform current institutional frameworks and develop
new, innovative mechanisms to improve the quality
and speed of deployment of international cooperation,
and monitor progress in an open and timely manner.
1.
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SDSN’s strategy to achieve the SDGs
Overhauling global governance mechanisms and the
global financial architecture is fundamental to unlocking
needed investments for sustainable development and
ending non-sustainable practices. The GFA includes
not only strictly financial mechanisms, but also public
policies regarding budgets and regulation. Moreover,
public policies must be pursued at all levels: globally
through treaties such as the UNFCCC; regionally, such
as through the European Union, the African Union,
and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN);
nationally, through national plans and budgets; and
locally, at the provincial and city level, including through
city networks. The GFA also requires alignment of the
private sector with the SDGs, brought about through
regulation, incentives (such as tax incentives or carbon
pricing), and management practices.
The SDG policy agenda is complex. The SDGs call for
lasting, long-term, directed change. For governments
to combine the objectives of economic development,
social inclusion, transparency, energy decarbonization,
climate adaptation, water resources and sanitation,
biodiversity conservation, digital access, gender
equality, circular economy, over-harvesting, universal
Table 1.1
Global Population, Investment, and GDP byWorld
Bank Income Category (% ofWorldTotal)
Population Investment GDP
LIC 8.0% 0.4% 0.5%
LMIC 43.2% 11.9% 10.7%
UMIC 32.7% 37.4% 28.5%
HIC 16.1% 50.3% 60.3%
Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2022
Number of UN
Member States
Countries with a
Moody’s rating
Countries with
an investment-
grade rating
Countries with an
investment-grade
rating, %
Population with
an investment-
grade rating, %
LIC 28 9 0 0.0% 0.0%
LMIC 54 36 3 5.6% 52.8%
UMIC 52 40 10 19.2% 70.2%
HIC 59 52 45 76.3% 98.3%
WORLD 193 137 58 30.1% 60.5%
Source: Moody’s andWorld Bank (2023)
Table 1.2
Credit Ratings by Income Category

SDSN’s strategy to achieve the SDGs
15
health access and coverage, and universal (pre-
primary, primary, and secondary) high-quality public
education, is daunting. These challenges are far more
complex than the typical aims of government. They
are long-term, technology-based, and capital intensive,
replete with technological and political uncertainties,
inherently a blend of public and private actions, and in
need of coordinated investments and planning with
neighboring countries.
SDSN puts a great emphasis on long-term national
planning, to coordinate public investments, regulations,
and incentive structures over a time horizon of 20-30
years. Our special emphasis is on pathway analysis to
help governments and business design long-term
investment plans. For that reason, the SDSN first
pioneered the concept of “Deep Decarbonization
Pathways”in the lead-up to the Paris Agreement, to
show governments how they could plan their energy
investments during the time period 2015-2050. The
SDSN’s initiative contributed to the concept of Long-
term Low-Emission Development Strategies (LEDS) built
into the Paris Agreement (Article 4.19). All countries are
to prepare and submit long-term LEDS for submission
to the UNFCCC. SDSN also launched the Global Climate
Hub to continue this work.17
SDSN is also leading
global efforts, in cooperation with the Food and Land
Use (FOLU) Coalition and other partners, to define
long-term sustainable food and land-use pathways
via the Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and
Energy (FABLE) Consortium.18
SDSN has joined the
Group on Earth Observations (GEO)19
as a Participating
Organization, supporting the efforts of this voluntary
intergovernmental community to focus national,
international, and private sector investments in Earth
observations on urgent SDG needs.
17. SDSN Global Climate Hub. Website. Accessed May 16, 2023. https://
unsdsn.globalclimatehub.org.
18. Mosnier, A., Schmidt-Traub, G., Obersteiner, M. et al. How can diverse
national food and land-use priorities be reconciled with global
sustainability targets? Lessons from the FABLE initiative. Sustain Sci 18,
335–345 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01227-7
19. Earth Observations. Available at: https://earthobservations.org
Long-term investment plans are essential for national
success in meeting the SDGs. SDSN has recommended
six inter-related long-term transformations:20
1. Universal quality education and innovation-based
economy
2. Universal health access and coverage
3. Zero-carbon energy systems
4. Sustainable ecosystems, sustainable agriculture,
and climate resilience
5. Sustainable cities
6. Transformation to universal digital access and
services
Each of these challenges will require large-scale
public and private investments to mid-century,
technological transformation, and a sound financing
strategy. None can be solved by the private sector
alone; indeed, governments will have to take the
lead to design policy and financial frameworks within
which business can profitably invest and innovate.
The Sustainable Development Report 2023 identifies
five levers to be deployed to bring about the
necessary transformations: governance, economy and
finance, individual and collective action, science and
technology, and capacity building. The development
of financing strategies could be supported by using
the methodology of integrated national financing
frameworks, whichare already being developed in
more than 80 countries globally.
Planning for the long term, however, illuminates
the global financial architecture’s Achilles heel.
While the high-income countries (HICs) and upper-
middle income countries (UMICs) can and should,
in principle, finance these transformations via
a combination of budget outlays, public-sector
borrowing, and private financing (equity and debt),
this is surely not true of the low-Income countries
(LICs) and the lower middle-income countries
20. Sachs, J.D., Schmidt-Traub, G., Mazzucato, M. et al. Six Transformations
to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Nat Sustain 2, 805–814
(2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0352-9
1.
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(LMICs). Careful research by the SDSN and the
International Monetary Fund has revealed the very
large financing gap facing nations in the poorer half
of the world.21
According to IMF estimates in 2019, the financing gap
facing 57 low-income developing countries (LICs and
LMICs that are eligible for IMF concessional financing)
to cover very basic investments in health, education,
power, roads, and water and sanitation was in the order
of US$300 billion to US$500 billion per year.22
Even the
most basic economic needs are currently out of reach
for roughly half the world. And these IMF estimates
do not yet begin to include the full costs of energy
decarbonization, climate adaptation, losses and damages
from climate-related disasters, digital access, or urban
infrastructure. Adding in these extra needs, the global SDG
financing gap is perhaps US$1 trillion per year, or roughly
1% of gross world product (GWP) at market prices. As a
rough rule of thumb based on work by SDSN and the IMF,
the LICs need roughly 20% of their GDP in increased SDG
investment outlays while the LMICs need roughly 10%,
though precise amounts vary by country.
To make sure that existing financial resources and the
required additional resources are used for sustainable
investments, international finance institutions must
fully incorporate achieving the SDGs and safeguarding
the planetary boundaries into their core mandates, and
monitor these regarding all countries, poorer and richer
alike. Global infrastructure programs like China’s Belt and
Road, the EU’s Global Gateway, or the United States’Build
Back Better World initiatives must be much better aligned
with the SDGs and coordinated with each other.
21. Gaspar, Vitor et al. 2019. Fiscal Policy and Development: Human,
Social, and Physical Investment for the SDGs. IMF Staff Discussion
Note. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/
Issues/2019/01/18/Fiscal-Policy-and-Development-Human-Socialand-
Physical-Investments-for-the-SDGs-46444
22. ibid.
The urgent needforan SDG Stimulus
23. Guterres, A. The Secretary-General: Address to the General Assembly.
New York, 20 September 2022. https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/
speeches/2022-09-20/secretary-generals-address-the-general-assembly
24. The High-Level Informal Working Group is co-convened by Ms. Amina
Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor, Columbia University.
Members: Dr. Amar Bhattacharya, Brookings; Mr. Navid Hanif, UN
DESA; Dr. Homi Kharas, Brookings; Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, United
Nations; Mr. Remy Rioux, AFD; Dr. Rajiv Shah, Rockefeller; Mr. Achim
Steiner, UNDP.
25. United Nations Secretary-General. 2023. SDG Stimulus To Deliver
Agenda 2030. https:/www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-
content/uploads/2023/02/SDG-Stimulus-to-Deliver-Agenda-2030.pdf
26. High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism (HLAB),
2022. A Breakthrough for People and Planet: Effective and Inclusive
Global Governance for Today and the Future, https://www.
highleveladvisoryboard.org/breakthrough
In his opening address to the UN General Assembly
on September 20, 2022, UN Secretary-General António
Guterres called on the G20 to launch an“SDG Stimulus”
to offset the deteriorating market conditions faced
by developing countries and to accelerate progress
towards the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement.23
SDSN provided the Secretariat of a High-Level Informal
Working Group for the SDG Stimulus (HLIWG),24
that
made the case for an SDG Stimulus of an additional
US$500 billion per year by 2025 of SDG finance. The SDG
Stimulus plan recommended by the High-Level Working
Group and introduced by SG Guterres last February25
has
five main components:
1. Increased funding from the Multilateral Development
Banks (MDBs) and Public Development Banks (PDBs)
to developing countries, linked to investments in the
SDGs, a need echoed in the 2023 report of the High-
Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism26
2. Enhancement of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative
(DSSI) and debt relief for countries facing debt distress
3. Expansion of liquidity by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and major central banks
4. Empowerment and expansion of the specialized global
funds
5. Expansion of private philanthropy, with focus on ultra-
high net worth individuals

Regional cooperation and sustainable development
17
The urgent objective of the SDG Stimulus is to address –
in practical terms and at scale – the chronic shortfall of
international SDG financing facing the LICs and LMICs,
and to ramp up financing flows by at least US$500 billion
by 2025. The most important component of the stimulus
plan is a massive expansion of loans by the multilateral
development banks, backed by new rounds of paid-in
capital by HIC members. Working together with the IMF
and the MDBs, the emerging countries also need to
strengthen their debt management and creditworthiness
by integrating their borrowing policies with tax policies,
export policies, and liquidity management, all to prevent
future liquidity crises. The G20 Bali Leaders’Declaration
noted another important point, which is the need to
expand and enhance innovative financing mechanisms,
including blended finance, as well as improving
transparency and mutual accountability.
It is also vital to share fairly and globally the burden of
financing for human-induced adaptation and losses and
damages (LD) among responsible countries, and to
respond to the needs of vulnerable countries and small
island developing states (SIDS).27
27. Sachs et al. 2021. The Decade of Action and Small Island Developing
States: Measuring and addressing SIDS’vulnerabilities to accelerate
SDG progress. https://irp.cdn-website.com/be6d1d56/files/uploaded/
WP_MVI_Sachs%20Massa%20Marinescu%20Lafortune_FINAL_
cVeeBVmKSKyYYS6OyiiH.pdf
Enhanced global governance for
the SDGs
The SDGs are not yet properly incorporated into
global governance. Systems coherence, and ultimate
success in meeting the SDGs, leads us to the following
recommendations:
1. All United Nations agencies should put the SDGs
at the centerpiece of their strategies, programs,
and reporting.
2. The World Bank and the other MDBs should
put the SDGs at the center of their financing
strategies, performance reviews, and reporting.
3. The IMF should build its national reviews
(Article IV), debt sustainability framework (DSF),
and country programming around the public
policies and financing needed for national success
in achieving the SDGs.
4. The G20 should organize its financial
cooperation, reporting, and metrics around
the reform of the GFA, as needed to achieve
the SDGs.
5. All UN Member States should present VNRs
at least once every three years. It is especially
urgent that the five countries that have not
yet presented VNRs should do so no later
than 2024.
6. United Nations agencies, multilateral
organizations, and Member States need to
increase investment in, and coordination
of, national and international data and
statistical systems and scientific capacity to
assess SDG progress and support sustainable
development decision making and
investment, including disaggregated data by
region, social stratification, and other criteria
as helpful.
Regional cooperation and
sustainable development
One of the consistent findings of the SDSN is that SDG
success requires strong cooperation at the regional level.
Neighboring countries share ecosystems (rivers, forests,
fishing zones, wetlands) and must cooperate to protect
them. Strong regional partnerships are needed to
achieve regional objectives. The great seas, such as the
Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, are under severe
threat from chemical and plastics pollution, and must be
protected by all countries whose rivers feed these seas.
Moreover, regional cooperation is needed to promote
technological and social innovations. For example, the
Mediterranean region is a hot spot for climate change,
threatened also by urbanization, economic pressures,
and geo-political crises. Nonetheless, it is recognized
as the birthplace of the “Mediterranean diet,”with an
1.
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agri-food sector with the potential to meet the increased
demand for healthy, sustainable foods in the future.
Transport, zero-carbon power, and digital (fiberoptic)
backbones depend on regional-scale grids. For all of
these reasons and more, neighboring countries must
cooperate deeply to build infrastructure and share
data and knowledge, and to implement sustainable
development policies. Regional international policies
and agreements should be based on available
scientific knowledge.
SDSN calls for, and is actively supporting, the devel-
opment of similar regional-based sustainability plans
with associated financing. SDSN is closely following
and supporting the EU’s endeavors to achieve the
SDGs, inter alia by the EU’s European Green Deal. The
EU Green Deal has great potential to bring about
transformation both within the EU and beyond,
including the larger European and Mediterranean
region, and even Africa. SDSN is working with the
ASEAN Secretariat and member states to help develop
the ASEAN Green Deal, introduced in 2022 under the
ASEAN Presidency of Cambodia. SDSN is supporting
the African Development Bank to develop a strategic
plan to accelerate Africa’s sustainable development,
with the aim of the African Union achieving high-in-
come status and sustainable development by 2063,
the 100th
anniversary of the Organization of African
Unity. SDSN is working with the Amazon Basin
nations, through the Scientific Panel of the Amazon,
to develop a regional strategy for the conserva-
tion and sustainable development of the Amazon.
In that capacity, the SDSN is also supporting new
partnerships between the rainforest countries of the
Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia
for a global financing mechanism to protect all three
tropical rainforest regions. Protection and sustainable
management of rainforest ecosystems through related
standardization will support their impact assessment
on a global basis.
The sub-national level
Provincial, metropolitan, and city governments are
typically at the front line in achieving the SDGs. Nearly
60 percent of the world population now lives in urban
areas, and that proportion is likely to rise to at least
70 percent, and probably higher, by mid-century.
Moreover, cities constitute at least 85 percent of total
world output and energy use. What happens in cities will
determine the future of the world, and the success or
failure in sustainable development.
Local governments have the front-line responsibility
for implementing universal health systems, places in
school for all children, safe water and sanitation, public
transport services, adequate housing, and physical safety
in the local environment (from crime, toxic wastes, and
natural hazards). This is why mayors and city councils
around the world have rallied to the SDGs, even if their
local leadership is sometimes under-appreciated and
under-noted because national governments tend to
hold the limelight at the United Nations, with the MDBs,
and in the media.
Cities face one other chronic problem. While they are
largely responsible for service delivery, it is national
governments that, by and large, collect revenue to fund
public investments and social services. Cities are therefore
caught between front-line responsibility and back-of-the-
line access to the necessary public financing.
SDSN recognizes this gap in the practical means of
implementation of city governments, and is currently
working with the major urban think tanks and global
urban networks (including the C40 and ICLEI) to address
the challenge of sub-national financing of the SDGs.
This initiative will be launched in Paris in during the June
Summit for a New Global Financial Pact.

The continuing efforts of the SDSN
19
Global peace as the prerequisite for
sustainable development
28. Xinhua. 2022. Xi meets German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. https://english.
news.cn/20221104/f544bca38c33443186d3de8b3d0a9a27/c.html
SDG 16 recognizes the vital role of peaceful and inclusive
societies, and SDG 17 underscores the need for global
outreach and cooperation to achieve the Goals. Peace and
global cooperation must not become mere slogans. They
are ever more vital to human survival in an age when both
nuclear weapons and environmental devastation threaten
the very survival of humanity. We recall in this context the
powerful truth spoken by United States President John F.
Kennedy more than 60 years ago, when he declared,“The
world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal
hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty
and all forms of human life.”Peace and global cooperation
mean nothing less and nothing more than choosing the
end of human poverty over the end of human life.
We take note of the dire warning of the Bulletin of Atomic Sci-
entists,whichrecentlymovedthehandsofitsDoomsdayClock
to just 90 seconds from midnight, the closest to Armageddon
in the Clock’s 76-year history;“largely (though not exclusively)
because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine.”We
commend global leaders who“oppose the use of or the threat
to use nuclear weapons”28
and urge all sides to follow this call.
Had the negotiations underway in March 2022 between
Russia and Ukraine been successfully concluded, count-
less lives would have been saved and the devastation of
Ukraine’s cities would have been spared. The world would
have escaped the current tumult of soaring food and
energy prices and other financial dislocations. We would
not be even closer to nuclear Armageddon.
International relations scholars have powerfully described
the“tragedy”of great power conflict. They warn that the
jostling for power – or hegemonic domination – ends in
tragic wars. We cannot afford such a tragedy in our world
today. The world is indeed very different now, as we live
under the threat of nuclear war, and even nuclear anni-
hilation. We need not only technological know-how, but
also diplomatic know-how, to respect global diversity and
to settle international disputes peacefully.
The continuing efforts ofthe SDSN
29. Mission 4.7. Available from: https://www.mission4point7.org
30. UNESCO, Futures of Education, International Commission. Available from:
https://en.unesco.org/futuresofeducation/international-commission
The SDSN was created in 2012, soon after the Rio+20
Summit which mobilized the world’s universities, think
tanks, and national laboratories on behalf of the SDGs.
SDSN’s mission was fourfold: scholarly research, educa-
tional innovation, and partnerships, convening power, and
outreach to the public. We are proud of our efforts since
2012 in these four areas.
The SDSN is now a global network of more than 1,900
member organizations, mainly universities, organized in
53 national and regional chapters. The SDSN convenes
global university leadership on behalf of shared activities
to support sustainable development. In 2022, hundreds
of university presidents brainstormed and shared best
practices in aligning their institutions with the SDGs. SDSN
membership continues to grow rapidly, and new national
and regional chapters are regularly launched.
We aim to ensure that institutions of higher learning
and public policy research centres in all 193 UN Member
States are actively part of the SDSN. The SDSN’s flagship
educational initiative, the SDG Academy, directly reaches
hundreds of thousands of learners each year, with an
expanding provision of free, world-class educational offer-
ings. In 2023, the SDSN is working with universities around
the world to launch further low-cost master’s degrees
in sustainable development, in an effort to dramatically
increase the number of students reached each year.
SDSN is working closely with the UNESCO SDG 4 High-
Level Steering Committee on these two major issues, via
Mission 4.7 through an SDG Academy Partnership with
the Open Education Resources Recommendation team at
UNESCO.29
The International Commission on the Futures of
Education recognizes that open education resources are
essential for supporting students, educators, and young
professionals on their education for sustainable develop-
ment (ESD) journeys.30
The UNESCO Recommendation on
open education resources was endorsed by all Member
States in November 2019. In September 2022, at the
1.
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Transforming Education Summit in New York, the United
Nations Secretary-General announced a number of global
initiatives. One of them is the International Financing
Facility for Education.31
Another is the Gateways to Public
Digital Learning project32
to ensure equitable access to
and resources for digital learning.
The SDG Academy33
is also building partnerships around
professional training to upskill employees and make
them future-ready for implementing the SDGs and Paris
Agreement. Ideally, at every stage of life, individuals
should understand how they coexist in harmony with
people and the planet. We may not wish to harm people,
or our common home, but all of us must“go back to
school”and learn how to create positive linkages to
people and nature in everyday activities, at home and at
work. SDSN will endeavor to support professional training
and lifelong learning across all sectors.
Another key dimension of the SDSN’s work is supporting
governments, at all levels, to understand the implications
of policy choices and to make evidence-based and
forward-looking decisions. SDSN engages in a wide range
of intergovernmental processes, including the G20, G7,
UNFCCC, CBD meetings, and World Health Assembly.
These fora are critical to encourage international
collaboration, promote peace, and implement the
recommendations contained within this document, in
particular on SDG finance. SDSN remains at the disposal of
all stakeholders to analyze pathways and scenarios, and to
leverage knowledge to make sound decisions.
All UN Member States and United Nations agencies can
count on the continued efforts and energies of the SDSN
around the world to support all governments, businesses,
and civil society to embrace and align with the SDGs on
sustainable development.
31. Guterres, A. Secretary-General’s remarks to the Press on the International
Finance Facility for Education [as delivered], 17 September 2022.
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2022-09-17/
secretary-generals-remarks-the-press-the-international-finance-
facility-for-education-delivered
32. United Nations, Gateways to Public Digital Learning, 19 September
2022. https://www.un.org/en/transforming-education-summit/
gateways-public-digital-learning
33. SDG Academy. Available from: https://sdgacademy.org
Sustainable development to 2030
and 2050
The tasks of sustainable development – ensuring
material human well-being and security, social
inclusion and justice, environmental sustainability, and
global cooperation to secure peace and sustainable
development – are not just tasks to 2030. They are the
preeminent tasks of the coming generations, enshrined
in several documents including the 2030 Agenda (2015)
and UNESCO’s Declaration on the Responsibilities of the
Present Generations Towards Future Generations (1997).
They are the work of the 21st
century.
We conclude by underscoring the vital, life-affirming
importance of four key international agreements: the
Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate
Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Framework for
Biodiversity, and the High Seas Treaty. These are signal
achievements of humanity, to have come together across
all nations to adopt a common set of challenges. As we
have emphasized in this statement, our major challenge
today is matching these soaring ambitions with the
means to achieve them, most importantly, the financial
resources and regulatory conditions for the investments
needed to achieve these goals.
At the mid-point of the SDG agenda, we are far
off target. Yet we have gained ground. Almost all
governments have committed to adopting SDG-
based action plans; technologies have advanced that
can support the goals (such as green energy, green
transactions, green jobs, Earth observations, and
artificial intelligence); and there is growing regional
cooperation to achieve the goals on the ground,
through shared investments, knowledge, and policies.
Achieving the SDGs requires more than “normal politics”.
Governments are only now learning how to design
integrated strategies that address economic, social,
and environmental objectives in tandem. Governments
are only now mapping out pathways to mid-century
to meet crucial energy, healthcare, and education
objectives, among others. Governments are only now
establishing RD funds to promote breakthroughs
in key technologies that will expand their power and

Sustainable development to 2030 and 2050
21
reduce their costs. Governments are only now building
the digital platforms and data networks that integrated
strategies will depend on. And governments are only
now, many years late, turning their attention to the
chronic and deep shortcomings of the GFA.
Sustainable human development is a multi-dimensional
process. The balance between the ecological, economic,
social, and cultural spheres, together with political,
ethical, and cultural aspects, must be nurtured. Open
sharing of data and knowledge across these dimensions
is essential to building trust and cooperation. People
of good will must choose and act coherently in their
private and in their professional lives to further the
common good.
For these reasons, we end our message with two
urgent and timely calls for action:
First, that UN Member States, at the 2023 SDG Summit
and the 2024 Summit of the Future, recommit boldly,
strongly, and proactively to the SDGs, accelerate progress
to 2030, and adopt even more ambitious SDG targets
and objectives to mid-century, also incorporating recent
international agreements on oceans and biodiversity.
As the aims of the 2030 Agenda are ever-evolving, and
linked to many processes, we call on academia, civil
society, and business to develop proposals on how this
agenda can be enhanced and enforced in the decade(s)
to come.
Second, UN Member States, starting with the G20
meeting this September in India, should adopt an SDG
Stimulus to accelerate progress towards the SDGs by
2030 and enhance global governance for enforcing the
implementation of the SDGs by all countries.
1.
The
SDSN
Framework

The SDG Index
and Dashboards
2

SDG Report 2023: Implementing the SDG Stimulus

SDG Report 2023: Implementing the SDG Stimulus

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