UN chief calls for intensified efforts to achieve SDGs

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged stronger efforts to achieve SDGs, highlighting financial reform, climate action, and technology. With many goals off track, UNGA President Annalena Baerbock warned progress is insufficient and uneven.

United Nations: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for intensified efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the SDG Moment event held at UN headquarters.

At the event, hosted during the High-Level Week of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), Guterres outlined the path to reaching the SDGs: reforming the global financial architecture, placing climate action at the center, and preparing for technological transformation.

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“In all we do, we must make peace a priority,” he said, stressing that in 2024 global military spending was 13 times official development assistance, Xinhua news agency reported.

With five years to go until 2030, only 35 per cent of the SDGs are on track, 47 per cent are seeing insufficient progress, and 18 per cent have gone into reverse, UNGA President Annalena Baerbock said at the event.

“The financial picture is equally stark. At a moment of rising need, net official development assistance fell by 7.1 per cent last year,” she said.

“We are not moving as fast as we should on the foundational promise of the Sustainable Development Goals,” Baerbock added.

She emphasised that “development will only be fair and sustainable if it makes space for voices too often ignored, and if we combine our efforts and show solidarity with each other.”

With 17 SDGs at its core, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015, committing to eradicating poverty, promoting equality, addressing climate change, and more by 2030.