With four years remaining until the 2030 Agenda target, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026 provides a timely and sobering picture of global progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In this blog, we offer an overview of where progress is being made, where significant challenges and inequalities remain, and the priorities for accelerating progress towards 2030.

A global assessment of sustainable development

Covering all 17 SDGs, the report was prepared by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) in collaboration with the UN Statistical System.  It draws on data from more than 200 countries and territories to examine progress, setbacks, and areas requiring greater attention as 2030 approaches. SDG measurement has also expanded to 233 indicators, up from 115 in 2016, and around 3.2 million data records, up from 330,000.

The report presents a complex and “sobering”  picture. Gains have been made in areas including health, energy access, digital connectivity, and renewable energy. However, outcomes remain uneven within and between countries and population groups. Challenges persist in poverty, hunger, gender equality, climate action, biodiversity, peace, and development finance. Conflict, climate change, inequality, and financial pressures can also intersect, slowing or reversing progress across multiple Goals.

Key findings

Of the 139 (of 169) SDG targets with sufficient data for assessment, 15% are on track or have met their target and 21% show moderate progress. Another 32% show marginal progress, 17% are stagnating, and 15% have regressed below their 2015 baseline.

Progress can therefore coexist with substantial inequalities and unmet targets. Selected findings include:

• Zero Hunger (SDG 2): An estimated 645 million people experienced chronic hunger in 2025, slightly below the proportion in 2015. However, 2.1 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity – 527 million more than in 2015.
• Good Health and Well-being (SDG 3): Under-five mortality fell by 13% between 2015 and 2024, with 134 countries reaching the target of no more than 25 deaths per 1,000 live births. Yet 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2024, almost half in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
• Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8): Global unemployment fell from 6% in 2015 to 4.9% in 2025. However, 138 million children remained in child labour in 2024, including 54 million in hazardous work, while compliance with labour rights has deteriorated globally.
• Life on Land (SDG 15): Countries are strengthening biodiversity protections, but ecosystem loss continues. More than 48,600 species globally face extinction, and forests have declined by 41 million hectares since 2015, despite slower rates of forest loss and improvements in sustainable forest management.
• Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (SDG 16): Conflict, corruption, unequal representation, and limited public influence continue to affect progress. Across 83 countries, fewer than 45% of people believe their political systems respond to their views, while women and younger people remain underrepresented in positions of influence.

SDG monitoring in the AI era

The report does not examine the wider financial, environmental, or community impacts of AI infrastructure. However, its special section, SDG monitoring in the AI era: renewing official statistics for people, trust, and sovereignty, highlights both its potential to improve data collection and analysis, and its risks around accuracy, bias, privacy, representation, accountability, and public trust. It calls for people-centred, transparent, and accountable AI, governed in the public interest with strong national control over data and statistical systems.

Priorities for progress to 2030

The report argues that faster progress requires changes to the systems enabling action across the SDGs, rather than addressing each Goal separately. Central to this is closing the estimated US$4 trillion annual financing gap in developing countries.

The report also calls for stronger institutions and investment to translate existing commitments into actions, and sustained investment in reliable, inclusive data so resources can be better directed and progress measured. Gender equality, renewable energy, peace and development, equitable access to technology, climate, and biodiversity protection are also identified as areas where faster action can advance multiple Goals. As Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, states in the report: “Because these crises are linked, they demand integrated solutions.”

He concludes:

“The path forward is not obscure or beyond reach. The SDGs remain our most effective blueprint for peace, prosperity and sustainability. We must urgently return them to the centre of global decision-making… The next four years will test our momentum. The choices we make now regarding financing, global cooperation and collective crisis management will echo for generations.”

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Resources

• 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
• Sustainable Development Goals
• Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026

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CourtHeath acknowledges the Traditional Aboriginal Owners of Country throughout Victoria and pays respect to Elders past and present, and to the ongoing living culture of Aboriginal people.

A participant in the UN Global Compact, CourtHeath seeks to raise awareness about the sustainable development goals and the principles of the Global Compact with business and government organisations in Victoria.

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