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The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 provides a global overview of progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, using the latest available data and estimates. It tracks the global and regional progress towards the 17 Goals with in-depth analyses of selected indicators for each Goal.
According to the Report, cascading and interlinked crises are putting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in grave danger, along with humanity’s very own survival. The Report highlights the severity and magnitude of the challenges before us. The confluence of crises, dominated by COVID-19, climate change, and conflicts, are creating spin-off impacts on food and nutrition, health, education, the environment, and peace and security, and affecting all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Report details the reversal of years of progress in eradicating poverty and hunger, improving health and education, providing basic services, and much more. It also points out areas that need urgent action in order to rescue the SDGs and deliver meaningful progress for people and the planet by 2030.
According to the latest data presented in the Report, the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across the Goals and its effects are still far from over. Global “excess deaths” directly and indirectly attributable to COVID-19 reached 15 million by the end of 2021. More than four years of progress in alleviating poverty have been wiped out, pushing 93 million more people worldwide into extreme poverty in 2020. An estimated 147 million children also missed more than half of their in-person instruction over the past two years. The pandemic also severely disrupted essential health services, derailing hard-won progress on SDG 3.
Meanwhile, the world is on the verge of a climate catastrophe where billions of people are already feeling the consequences. Energy-related CO2 emissions for 2021 rose by 6 per cent, reaching their highest level ever and completely wiping out pandemic-related declines. To avoid the worst effects of climate change, as set out in the Paris Agreement, global greenhouse gas emissions will need to peak before 2025 and then decline by 43 per cent by 2030, falling to net zero by 2050. Instead, under current voluntary national commitments to climate action, greenhouse gas emissions will rise by nearly 14 per cent over the next decade.
The war in Ukraine has created one of the largest refugee crises of modern time. As of May 2022, over 100 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes. The crisis has caused food, fuel and fertilizer prices to skyrocket, further disrupted supply chains and global trade, roiled financial markets, and threatened global food security and aid flows. Projected global economic growth for 2022 was cut by 0.9 percentage point, due to the war in Ukraine and potential new waves of the pandemic.
The report also emphasizes that to emerge stronger from the crises and prepare for unknown challenges ahead, funding our data and information infrastructure must be a priority for national governments and the international community.
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The annual report, a joint effort of the global statistical community, was launched during the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development as leaders from governments and different sectors of society gathered to chart strategies and efforts to fully implement the SDGs. The report provides essential data that allows decision-makers to guide efforts toward a sustainable recovery.
