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Global progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is alarmingly off track, according to the UN’s Sustainable Development Report 2024 (pdf). Only 16% of the targets set for 2030 are on track, with the rest showing little or even reversed progress since 2020. The climate-related SDGs — which includes access to affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), growing sustainable cities (SDG 11), climate action (SDG 13), managing healthy oceans (SDG 14), and protecting land (SDG 15) — are especially lagging behind, the report concluded, adding that new institutions and innovative global financing mechanisms like global taxation are required to mobilize sufficient funds.
How different regions are faring: Nordic and European countries remain frontrunners at the top of the 2024 SDG Index, with Finland holding the number one spot, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and France. Brics countries — including Egypt and the UAE — are also taking strong strides, as well as Ethiopia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia who have shown progress compared to 2015 levels. East and South Asia have also emerged as the regions with the most significant advancement towards the SDGs over the same period. However, poorer and vulnerable nations — including Small Island Developing States — are continuing to fall further behind.
REFRESHER- About the SDG scoring system: Depending on how countries score out of 100 in each SDG — which is broken down into several indicators — the country receives either a red (major challenges remain), orange (significant challenges remain), yellow (challenges remain), or green (SDG achieved) scores. The trend directions for each country are also broken down into colored indicators, with red signifying a decrease in progress, orange indicating stagnation, yellow reflecting moderate improvement, and green denoting that the country is on track or maintaining the SDG achievement.
The MENA region has a long way to go, receiving a red score on all five goals that are directly related to the environment (SDG 7, SDG 11, SDG 13, SDG 14, and SDG 15). In terms of trends, the region scored orange on SDGs 7, 11, 14, and 15, but received a yellow score on SGD 13 only, revealing that while significant challenges remain, work on climate action is slowly picking up.
How are MENA countries doing on SDG 7? The region is lagging on the SDG 7 goals with most of its countries including Morocco, Oman, KSA, Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, and Iraq getting a red score. Egypt and the UAE are doing better with an orange score for the SDG. The current trends show all these countries in the yellow score zone — except Yemen, which received an orange score.
SDG 11 performance isn’t much better: Egypt, Oman, Jordan, KSA, UAE, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen received a red score for SDG 11 goals, Morocco and Algeria got an orange score, and Tunisia received a yellow score. In terms of current trends, Morocco and Iraq saw a red score, while Egypt, KSA, Algeria, Jordan, and Yemen saw an orange score, and Oman, UAE and Tunisia scored yellow.
The climate action SDG saw a slight improvement: Only Oman, KSA, and UAE scored red for the climate action SDG 13, while Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, and Tunisia scored yellow, Iraq landed in orange, and only Yemen is in the green zone. The trend for the SDG has Morocco and Lebanon in the red zone, with Oman, UAE, and Tunisia scoring orange, Egypt, KSA, Algeria, Jordan, and Iraq in yellow, and Yemen again having the sole green score.
Life underwater has some of the lowest performances: The red scoreboard includes Egypt, Morocco, KSA, UAE, Yemen, and Tunisia, while the orange one includes Oman, Algeria, and Iraq, and the yellow one only has Jordan. Current trends had Yemen in the red, with Egypt, Morocco, Oman, KSA, UAE, Iraq, and Tunisia in orange and only Jordan in green
Along with life on land: The region’s performance scored lowest in the SDG 15 goals on life on land with Egypt, Morocco, KSA, UAE, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq and Yemen in red and only Oman, Kuwait and Libya in orange. The current trends show only Iraq and Iran in the red with Egypt, Oman, Morocco, KSA, UAE, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen in the orange score.
The report considered the level of compliance with the UN system: The report introduces a new Index of UN Multilateralism Support (UN-Mi) that assesses countries’ engagement with the UN system. This includes factors like treaty ratification, votes at the UN General Assembly, membership in UN organizations, involvement in conflicts, use of unilateral sanctions, and financial contributions to the UN.
And published the results of the third “Scenathon”: The report presented the results of the 2023 “Scenathon” — an initiative run by researchers from 22 countries across all continents exploring three alternative futures between 2030 and 2050 for food and land-use systems that center food security, climate goals, biodiversity conservation, and clean water. Based on the outcome of the Scenathon, the researchers found that global dietary shifts towards less animal consumption, investments in agricultural productivity in high-demand areas, and robust monitoring systems to stop deforestation could help offset 100 gigatons of CO2 emissions and stop the deforestation of around 100 mn hectares of land by 2050.
You can read more on how the MENA region fared in their SDG performance last year in our coverage of the Arab Region SDG Index and Dashboards Report 2023 published in January.
