In 2015, the nations of the world adopted seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, to be achieved by 2030: ending poverty and hunger, ensuring quality education and good health, advancing gender equality, protecting the planet and more. On 10 July 2023, at the halfway point, the United Nations launched a special edition of its annual progress report.
The assessment was candid. Of roughly 140 targets evaluated, only about 15 per cent were on track. Close to half were moderately or severely off track, and more than 30 per cent had seen no movement or had regressed below their 2015 baseline.
A summons rather than a verdict
It would be understandable to read such figures as a verdict of failure. I would suggest reading them instead as a summons. Midpoint assessments exist precisely so that course can be corrected while time remains.
It is also worth remembering that global goals are not achieved by global institutions alone. They are achieved — or not — in classrooms, clinics, community gardens and kitchen tables around the world. Every literacy class, every health day, every tree planted is a small contribution to a shared global account.
Local work, global meaning
For community organisations, the goals offer a useful vocabulary. A digital literacy programme contributes to quality education and decent work. A health outreach partnership contributes to good health and wellbeing. A tree-planting campaign contributes to climate action and sustainable communities. Framing local work in this language can help organisations connect with funders, partners and volunteers who share those aims.
What I take from it
The report’s most important lesson, to my mind, is that progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. It depends on deliberate choices, sustained effort and collaboration across sectors. No single organisation can move the global figures. Yet the global figures are nothing more than the sum of countless local efforts.
The second half of the journey to 2030 will be written by those who decide, despite the difficulty, to keep walking.
This article is commentary and personal reflection, not news reporting. Facts and figures are drawn from the publicly available sources listed below; the views expressed are the author’s own.
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