Deputy-Secretary-General,UNDP Administrator,Excellencies,Distinguished Delegates,Colleagues,Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honor for me to share with you, the findings of the special edition of the Secretary-General’s progress report on the Sustainable Development Goals. The report was prepared in cooperation with the United Nations system Task Team on the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. As the Deputy Secretary-General said, the Task Team was created by the Executive Committee of the Secretary-General to support substantive preparations of the SDG Summit in forthcoming September.
The special edition this year contains the mandated SDG progress report, based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected by international agencies. It also addresses the global response to the 2030 Agenda, and to the gaps and challenges and efforts for accelerating its implementation. It highlights cross-cutting actions to advance progress on all the Goals, including the ones falling behind. This later part of the report will be introduced by my co-chair of the UN Task Team, Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator of the UNDP.
Excellencies,
There are some optimistic findings in the report.
The voluntary national reviews provide us with additional insights. Governments have prioritized integration of the SDGs into their national plans and in some cases budgets. They have created institutional arrangements that will help drive and monitor the progress. But there are also challenges such as on how to deliver integrated policy making, or address the gaps in statistical capacities.
The United Nations too is making foundational changes, and the UN development system is undergoing deep reform to better respond to the paradigm shift at the heart of the 2030 Agenda.
Distinguished Delegates,
Despite positive trends, the shift in development pathways required to meet the Goals by 2030 is not yet advancing at the speed or scale required.
The Arab region is host to 14 out of the world’s 20 most water-stressed countries.
The Asia-Pacific region has made notable headway on poverty, quality education and affordable and clean energy. But it has also gone backwards on decent work and responsible consumption and production.
Latin America and the Caribbean made significant progress regarding social indicators, but globalization in trade and finance, technological change and shortcomings in social policies have contributed to high levels of inequality.
Europe has reduced extreme poverty to below 3 percent. But it is facing environmental degradation and climate change, demographic transition, inequality, and pressure on public finances.
Regrettably, the most vulnerable countries are bearing the brunt of the current obstacles to SDG implementation.
This report clearly shows the urgency of stepping up our actions and the importance of renewed political commitment to realizing the 2030 Agenda. The SDG Summit needs to send the clear message that World Leaders are committed to take the necessary actions to put the world on track to realize the SDGs by 2030.
The findings of the report underline the importance of multilateral action on all fronts. The UN system is convinced that only together we can find solutions to poverty, inequality and climate change – the defining challenges of our time.
I thank the UN system organizations who provided major contributions to this report. My thanks also go to my co-chair Achim and to the Deputy-Secretary-General for her guidance.
Thank you very much.
It is a great honor for me to share with you, the findings of the special edition of the Secretary-General’s progress report on the Sustainable Development Goals. The report was prepared in cooperation with the United Nations system Task Team on the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. As the Deputy Secretary-General said, the Task Team was created by the Executive Committee of the Secretary-General to support substantive preparations of the SDG Summit in forthcoming September.
The special edition this year contains the mandated SDG progress report, based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected by international agencies. It also addresses the global response to the 2030 Agenda, and to the gaps and challenges and efforts for accelerating its implementation. It highlights cross-cutting actions to advance progress on all the Goals, including the ones falling behind. This later part of the report will be introduced by my co-chair of the UN Task Team, Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator of the UNDP.
Excellencies,
There are some optimistic findings in the report.
- Extreme poverty and child mortality rates continue to fall.
- Progress is being made against a number of diseases.
- Certain targets regarding gender equality are seeing progress
- Electricity access in the poorest countries has begun to increase.
- Labour productivity has increased and unemployment is back to pre-financial crisis levels.
- The proportion of waters under national jurisdiction covered by marine protected areas more than doubled in the period since 2010.
- And progress on some means of implementation is moving rapidly.
The voluntary national reviews provide us with additional insights. Governments have prioritized integration of the SDGs into their national plans and in some cases budgets. They have created institutional arrangements that will help drive and monitor the progress. But there are also challenges such as on how to deliver integrated policy making, or address the gaps in statistical capacities.
The United Nations too is making foundational changes, and the UN development system is undergoing deep reform to better respond to the paradigm shift at the heart of the 2030 Agenda.
Distinguished Delegates,
Despite positive trends, the shift in development pathways required to meet the Goals by 2030 is not yet advancing at the speed or scale required.
- The extreme poverty rate is projected to be 6 percent in 2030. This means that we are at risk to miss the global target to eradicate extreme poverty if current trends continue.
- Hunger is on the rise for the third consecutive year;
- Biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate;
- Green-house gas emissions continue to increase;
- The required level of sustainable development financing and other means of implementation are not yet coming, and
- Institutions are not strong enough to respond adequately to today’s massive inter-related and cross-border challenges.
- Population groups with documented disadvantages largely remain excluded.
- Children are overrepresented among the poorest people -- one in five live in extreme poverty.
- A rural and urban divide is also evident, including in higher out of-school rates for primary and secondary school in rural areas compared to urban areas.
- People with disabilities and those living with HIV/AIDS continue to face multiple disadvantages, denying them both life opportunities and fundamental human rights.
- Gender inequalities also persist. Women represent less than 40 percent of those employed, occupy only a quarter of managerial positions in the world, and (in a limited set of countries with available data) face a gender pay gap of 12 percent.
The Arab region is host to 14 out of the world’s 20 most water-stressed countries.
The Asia-Pacific region has made notable headway on poverty, quality education and affordable and clean energy. But it has also gone backwards on decent work and responsible consumption and production.
Latin America and the Caribbean made significant progress regarding social indicators, but globalization in trade and finance, technological change and shortcomings in social policies have contributed to high levels of inequality.
Europe has reduced extreme poverty to below 3 percent. But it is facing environmental degradation and climate change, demographic transition, inequality, and pressure on public finances.
Regrettably, the most vulnerable countries are bearing the brunt of the current obstacles to SDG implementation.
- Economic growth rates for least developed countries, in terms of real GDP growth, was 4.5 per cent in 2017, falling short of the 2030 Agenda target of 7 per cent.
- Landlocked developing countries face infrastructure deficits with only 56 per cent having access to electricity, compared with the world average of over 89 per cent in 2017.
- For many small island developing States (SIDS), extreme climate vulnerability is exacerbated by the economic exposure characterized by less diversified economies, high debt burdens and a lack of access to concessional finance.
- More than half of world’s poor are projected to live in countries affected by conflict.
- And, a large number of middle-income countries are facing formidable development challenges due to high and pervasive levels of poverty and inequality, vulnerability to shocks, and the prospect of a middle-income trap. Other challenges include natural resources management, reliance on commodity exports, climate change, rapid urbanization and capacity issues at the local level.
This report clearly shows the urgency of stepping up our actions and the importance of renewed political commitment to realizing the 2030 Agenda. The SDG Summit needs to send the clear message that World Leaders are committed to take the necessary actions to put the world on track to realize the SDGs by 2030.
The findings of the report underline the importance of multilateral action on all fronts. The UN system is convinced that only together we can find solutions to poverty, inequality and climate change – the defining challenges of our time.
I thank the UN system organizations who provided major contributions to this report. My thanks also go to my co-chair Achim and to the Deputy-Secretary-General for her guidance.
Thank you very much.
File date:
Monday, May 20, 2019