In response to Agenda 2030 the UN Secretary-General submitted a ‘special edition’ of the annual report on the progress towards the SDGs. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by the UN in 2015. The report shows that over the past four years, progress has been made with regard to a number of SDGs and their targets. On the other hand, it demonstrates that on many other SDGs, progress has been slow, thereby especially hurting the most vulnerable people and countries. It observes that the shift in development pathways needed to meet the SDGs by 2030 is “not yet advancing at the speed or scale required”. With only a decade ahead before reaching 2030, the report identifies a series of cross-cutting areas where political leadership and urgent, scalable multi-stakeholder action is needed to dramatically accelerate progress.

The special edition report was published leading up to the High-Level Political Forum in New York and five major meetings focused on sustainable development to be held in September. It was written in cooperation with the UN System Task Team on the High-Level Political Forum,  co-chaired by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat and the United Nations Development Programme.

Read the full report here.