The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Apr 27

Written By C3 - Companies Creating Change

The UN’s 2030 Agenda is composed of 17 goals with 169 targets across 5 key themes, all aimed to address global challenges. They are the universal blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable world for all.

The 17 UN SDGs are as follows:

End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Fact: The Global poverty rate is set to be 7% in 2030, missing the target of eradicating poverty.
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.
Fact: An additional 70-161 million people are likely to have experienced hunger as a result of the COVID pandemic.
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
Fact: An additional 18 million health workers are needed primarily in low and lower-middle income countries to achieve universal health coverage by 2030.
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Fact: 47 million children are estimated to have missed more than half of their in-class instruction over the past two years due to school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Fact: Between 2018 and 2021, only 26% of countries have comprehensive systems in place to track public allocations for gender equality, 59% have some features of such a system, and 15% do not have the minimum elements of such a system.
Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Fact: At the current rates of progress, 1.6 billion people will lack safely managed drinking water, 2.8 billion people will lack safely managed sanitation, and 1.9 billion people will lack basic hand hygiene facilities in 2030.
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
Fact: At the current pace, only 92% of the world’s population would have access to electricity in 2030, leaving 670 million people unserved.
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Fact: The pandemic led to the loss of the equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs, which 4x the 2008 Financial Crisis.
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation.
Fact: In least developed countries, 14% of the rural population have no mobile network coverage at all, while another 12% have only 2G coverage.
Reduce income inequality within and among countries.
Fact: Roughly one in five people have experienced discrimination on at least one of the grounds prohibited under international human rights law, such as ethnicity, age, sex, disability, religion and sexual orientation.
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.
Fact: People in low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected by outdoor air pollution, accounting for 91% of the 4.2 million premature deaths.
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Fact: An estimated 17% of total food available to consumers (931 million metric tons) is wasted at household, food service and retail levels.
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by regulating emissions and promoting developments in renewable energy
Fact: 3 billion to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change.
Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Fact: In 2021, more than 17 million metric tons of plastic entered the world’s ocean, making up 85% of marine litter. The volume of plastic pollution entering the ocean each year is expected to double or triple by 2040.
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
Fact: Agricultural expansion is driving almost 90% of global deforestation, including 49.6% from expansion for cropland and 38.5% for livestock grazing.
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
Fact: As of May 2022, the number of people forced to flee conflict, violence, human rights violations and persecution had surpassed 100 million.
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.
Fact: The number of Internet users surged by 782 million to reach 4.9 billion people in 2021, or 63% of the global population.

All 17 SDGs can also be achieved through 6 major societal transformations as below, which provide a framework from where to build integrated strategies for the SDGs, and helps address trade offs and synergies.