The Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, asked countries and their leaders on Friday not to renounce their promise to end poverty, protect the planet and leave no one behind.
Presenting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2024 Report, Guterres also urged countries to redouble their commitment to accelerate the SDGs, at a time when only 17% of the goals are currently on track to be met.
“The conclusion is simple: our failure to secure peacetackle climate change and boost international finance is undermining development. We must accelerate action towards the SDGs, and we have no time to waste,” he stressed.
The 2024 Sustainable Development Goals Report, published this Friday by the UN, indicates that the world is not fulfilling the promises of the SDGs, highlighting that less than a fifth of the objectives are underway compliance by 2030.
With just six years to go until the deadline, current progress falls far short of what is needed to meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all members of the United Nations in 2015.
The report also reveals that almost half of the SDGs achieved minimal or moderate progress and more than a third stagnated or regressed.
“This report is known as the annual SDG bulletin and shows that the world is getting a low grade“Guterres said on Friday.
“In a world of unprecedented wealth, knowledge and technology, denying basic needs to so many people is outrageous and unforgivable. At the same time, we have what it takes to move towards a better future,” he said.
According to the document, the persistent impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, escalating conflicts, geopolitical tensions and growing climate chaos have severely hampered progress.
Among the report’s key findings is that for the first time this century, per capita GDP growth in half of the world’s most vulnerable nations is slower than in advanced economies, with nearly 60% of countries facing moderate hardship from abnormally high food prices in 2022.
At the current rate, One in five children under 5 years of age will be affected by growth delays. in 2030.
According to data collected in 2022 from 120 states, 55% of countries did not have laws prohibiting direct and indirect discrimination against women.
According to the United Nations, progress in education remains a cause for serious concern: only 58% of students worldwide reach a minimum reading level by the end of primary education.
According to the report, another 23 million people were pushed into extreme poverty and More than 100 million more people will suffer from hunger in 2022compared to 2019.
At the same time, the number of civilian deaths in armed conflicts soared in 2023, which was also the hottest year on record, with global temperatures approaching the critical limit of 1.5°C.
The report also warns that record ocean temperatures have triggered a fourth global coral bleaching event.
On the other hand, global unemployment reached a historic low of 5% in 2023, despite the fact that obstacles to obtaining a decent job persist, and, in the area of health, greater access to treatment prevented 20.8 million deaths related to the AIDS virus in the last three decades. .
The UN has identified financing for development as one of its urgent priorities, as the investment gap in the SDGs in developing countries now amounts to four trillion dollars (3.7 billion euros) per year.
From a more encouraging perspective, the report highlights some examples of success and resilience that countries can use to advance the achievement of the SDGs, such as “Notable recent advances in the deployment of renewable energy.“.
Furthermore, in most regions of the planet, girls have achieved gender parity and have even outperformed boys in completing schooling at all levels.
The increase in Internet access by around 70% in just eight years also illustrates how quickly transformative change is possible, according to the United Nations.
“Time and time again, humanity has shown that When we work together and apply our collective minds, we can forge solutions. to seemingly intractable problems,” said Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.
One of the key moments to put the world back on the right path towards achieving the SDGs will be the Future Summit, which will take place in September at the UN headquarters in New York.
The Summit’s deliberations will include addressing the debt crisis that is holding back so many developing countries and the urgent need to reform the international financial architecture.
Source: Observadora
