The UN on Friday said that only 17 percent of its 169 targets to improve life for the world’s more than 7 billion people are on track to be reached by the 2030 deadline.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched the annual report saying that “it shows the world is getting a failing grade.”
World leaders adopted the 17 wide-ranging development goals from ending global poverty to achieving gender equality in 2015, and set 169 specific targets to be reached by the end of the decade.
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Nearly half the targets show minimal or moderate progress and more than one-third are stalled or regressing — with just 17 percent on track to be achieved, the report said.
“The takeaway is simple,” Guterres said. “Our failure to secure peace, to confront climate change, and to boost international finance is undermining development.”
The report also cited the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and said that an additional 23 million people were pushed into extreme poverty and more than 100 million more were suffering from hunger in 2022 compared with 2019.
“In a world of unprecedented wealth, knowledge and technologies, the denial of basic needs for so many is outrageous and unacceptable,” Guterres said.
For the first time this century, per-capita GDP growth in half of the world’s most vulnerable nations is slower than that of advanced economies, threatening improvements in equality, the report said.
In 2022, nearly 60 percent of countries faced moderate to abnormally high food prices.
The goal of quality education is far offtrack, with only 58 percent of students worldwide reaching minimum proficiency in reading by the end of primary school, and “recent assessments reveal a significant decline in math and reading scores in many countries,” the report said.
As for gender equality, one in five girls still marry before age 18, violence against women persists, far too many women do not have the right to decide on their sexual and reproductive health and at current rates it would take 176 years for women to reach parity with men in management positions, it said.
The report also has “some glimmers of hope,” Guterres said.
Mobile broadband is accessible to 95 percent of the world’s population, up from 78 percent in 2015, while increased access to treatment has averted 20.8 million AIDS-related deaths in the past three decades and new malaria vaccines being rolled out could save millions of lives, the report said.
Girls in most regions are now achieving parity with boys in education and many women are breaking glass ceilings, it said.
“But the speed and scale of the change needed for sustainable development is still far too slow,” Guterres said.
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