Launch of the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025 - Press Briefing | United Nations

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have improved millions of lives over the past decade, but progress remains insufficient, UN report finds.

A decade after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN released today (14 Jul) the 10th edition of its annual progress report, The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025.

The report provides a stark assessment and a strong call for action.

While millions of lives have improved, through gains in health, education, energy, and digital connectivity, the pace of change remains insufficient to meet the Goals by 2030.

The latest available data show that only 35 per cent of targets are on track or making moderate progress, while nearly half are moving too slowly and 18 per cent have regressed.

"We are in a global development emergency,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres said today to the press.

He also said, “Today’s report shows that the Sustainable Development Goals are still within reach. But only if we act — with urgency, unity, and unwavering resolve.”

Despite cascading global challenges, the report documents notable global achievements.

At the same time, the report calls attention to challenges that continue to hold back sustainable development progress.

The report calls for action across six priority areas where intensified effort can generate transformative impact: food systems, energy access, digital transformation, education, jobs and social protection, and climate and biodiversity action.

It also urges governments and partners to implement the Medellín Framework for Action, a roadmap adopted at the 2024 UN World Data Forum, to strengthen data systems essential for responsive policymaking.

Guterres said, “35 percent of the goals are on target, and some are extremely important: Extreme Poverty has reduced; child mortality and women's mortality have dramatically reduced; and the access of girls to education and in general, access to education has substantially increased. So, if there were no Sustainable Development Goals, many of these achievements would never have been reached.”

He also said, “I think that the discussion is not whether or not we have reached enough. The discussion is what are the roots in the injustices and inequalities of our global economic and financial system that make it so difficult to implement things that everybody recognized are the things that are needed for us to live with dignity”

Answering a question about Gaza, Guterres said, “We all condemned the horrible, terrible attacks of Hamas. But what we are witnessing Gaza is a level of death and destruction that has no parallel in recent times, and it is something that undermines the, I would say, undermines the most basic conditions of human dignity for the population of Gaza.”