Four years from deadline, the world is just one-third into SDG targets
Mbongeni Mguni | Tuesday January 13, 2026 17:19
In the midst of the global turmoil around the economy, politics and powerplays, it’s almost easy to forget the optimism with which countries around the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015, under the banner of the United Nations.
When 193 nations met in New York that September, they agreed on perhaps the most ambitious global agreement towards advancing humankind, SDGs so bold that they hoped to secure “peace and prosperity for people and the planet” in the decade and a half to 2030.
By agreeing to the 17 SDGs, countries essentially recognised that “ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change”.
The optimism of that period has evaporated, replaced by the despair of COVID-19 and the fear and loathing of today where global superpowers are wrestling for dominance. Globalisation, the prevailing global philosophy of the post-Second World War era, is slowly receding.
Globalisation and deglobalisation are critical in the conversation about SDGs. Many African countries, including Botswana, have incorporated SDGs into their economic and development policymaking and even into their foreign policy. In the developed world, while many began optimistically, the SDGs have given way to more inward-looking economic, development and foreign policies.
Global partnerships aimed at “peace, ending poverty and curbing climate change” have consequently been impacted and the attainment of the SDGs has increasingly become an accident of national-level progress, rather than the deliberate pursuit of a global agenda.
In Africa, where many of the 169 targets under the SDGs are desperately needed, citizens face ever-widening poverty and inequality as well as declining healthcare and education access. Human rights are not guaranteed for citizens and in fact, democracy has been under attack in many nations.
While targets around health, education and inequality may be individualistic to countries, climate change is a universal threat and yet even here, major polluters have either been slow to curb their emissions or, in the case of the United States, have pulled out of the global conversation entirely.
Despite this, in its last progress report on the SDGs, the UN struck an optimistic tone, noting that globally child marriage as well as maternal and child mortality rates had fallen, while more young people, especially girls, were completing school. As at 2025, women held 27 percent of parliamentary seats worldwide, up from 22 percent, while similar improvements were seen in access to electricity, clean cooking, Internet connectivity and others.
The UN did acknowledge that despite these gains, conflicts, climate chaos, geopolitical tensions and economic shocks “continue to obstruct progress at the pace and scale needed to meet the 2030 target”.
Nelson Muffuh, the UN Resident Coordinator in South Africa, acknowledges the challenges.
Muffuh has more than 20 years of experience in international relations and negotiations as well as political and development issues at the UN Headquarters. He has also been closely involved with the SDGs over the years “focusing on the acceleration of systemwide and whole-of-society efforts on the SDGs”.
“With the 2030 deadline in view, a recent report from the UN Secretary General points to the fact that out of the measurable targets, only about a third are being achieved or are on track or progressing,” he told Mmegi recently in an interview. “Another third are not on track and they're stagnant and almost a quarter are regressing. “So, we need to really course correct and work better together across governments, across business, across international partners, across civil society, to take the accelerated interventions that are important.”
Critics have long ruled out the attainment of the SDGs and at best, say the global partnership was necessary to jointly identify challenges and gather momentum towards solutions. Achieving the targets was never the idea, but landing in the right areas was, optimists say.
The idea was to “shoot for the moon and land amongst the stars,” SDG proponents say.
Others however say rather than moving momentum in the right direction, the huge implementation gap in the SDGs and regression in some targets actually discourages other global partnerships such as climate change and health. Countries have shown total disregard for the SDGs at national level and equal disdain for the global targets such as peace and ending poverty, as can be seen in some of the hardline tariff and immigration policies adopted by some.
The UN’s own assessment of the SDGs progress spoke about confronting “uncomfortable truths”.
“Despite notable progress, the pace of change remains insufficient to meet our 2030 commitments,” the UN said. “One in 12 people still experience hunger, and billions lack access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene. “Persistent inequalities continue to limit human potential, with women devoting 2.5 times as many hours per day to unpaid care work as men, and persons with disabilities remaining underserved across multiple sectors. “The broader context is increasingly complex. “Climate change continues to accelerate, with temperatures breaking records year after year. “Many countries face record debt servicing costs, while a staggering $4 trillion annual financing gap constrains development progress.”
Muffuh told Mmegi that the UN was advancing six transitions, which are catalytic integrated interventions designed to make as much progress as possible in the remaining years to 2030.
“These are about education systems being transformed, this is food systems being transformed, these are energy systems being transformed in terms of access, affordability, and availability. “This is also about job creation and social protection because, of course, to grow the economy, you need jobs. “And then, when you grow the economy, you need to also make sure the social wage is handled. “And then, of course, we need to deal with environmental, biodiversity, and climate issues. “Now, if we work across the six transitions together in a concerted manner, we will make as much improvement and progress as possible over the next five years.”
With the SDGs destined to miss the mark, conversations are growing about what happens next. With the world in flux as superpowers wrestle, the future of the SDGs seems a distant consideration for some.
For Muffuh, focus should be on the years to 2030.
“That's quite a usual question people have started to ask, but we're resolutely focusing on the acceleration to achieve the current set of targets,” he told Mmegi. “When we get closer to 2030, we will then, of course, have to look at what happens after that.”
The UN veteran said the UN had adopted a Pact for the Future two years ago which looks at how to organise global governance and make the UN also better fit for the world of today and tomorrow to address emerging issues.
These emerging issues include Artificial Intelligence, technology and others. Possibly, conversations around the SDGs after 2030 could use the Pact as a mould.
“But right now, the focus is on accelerating the SDG interventions,” Muffuh said.