With just five years remaining until the 2030 deadline, a new UN report shows only a third of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) show adequate progress, with experts calling for the removal of barriers that make it difficult for countries to implement the goals.

The UN’s latest SDG Report 2025 paints a picture of both progress and regression. Of the 17 SDGs launched 10 years ago, only 35 per cent of targets are on track or showing moderate progress.

In contrast, 48 per cent of targets show insufficient progress, including 31 per cent with only marginal gains and 17 per cent with no progress at all. Most concerning, 18 per cent of targets have regressed below 2015 baseline levels.

“We are in a global development emergency. About 800 million people still live in extreme poverty, in intensifying climate impacts and in relentless debt service straining the resources that countries need to invest in their people,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, at the launch of the report.

Despite persistent global shocks—from conflict to climate change, to pandemics—the report notes that millions of lives have improved over the past decade.

Millions more people, including in Africa, have gained access to electricity, green cooking and the internet. Social protection reached over half of the world’s population, a significant increase from a just decade ago.

However, the report lays bare the scale of the remaining challenges. In 2023, nearly 273 million children and youth were still out of school. In 2024, 2.2 billion people lacked safe drinking water, 3.4 billion had no access to safe sanitation, and 1.7 billion had no basic hygiene services.

Climate change continues to undermine development gains, with 2024 confirmed as the hottest year on record.

Conflicts caused nearly 50,000 deaths in the same year, and more than 120 million people were forcibly displaced.

For Africa, the stakes could not be higher. Overlapping crises have been exacerbated by high debt burdens, declining aid flows, and persistent inequality.

With the youngest population in the world and an accelerating digital economy, the continent is both vulnerable and full of promise.

Realising the SDGs in Africa will require not just domestic policy reform and institutional strengthening but also renewed global solidarity, dealing with the debt crises, silencing the guns in conflict areas, and harnessing the power of the youth.

To avert further backsliding, Africa needs bold partnerships, investments in climate resilience, youth employment, health infrastructure, education, dealing with the debt crises, silencing the guns in conflict areas to allow for development to take place.