UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that war and lack of funding have hampered progress towards the world body’s key development goals, which include fighting poverty and climate change.
In 2015, UN member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, 17 goals to transform the world by 2030, including by completely ending extreme poverty and eliminating hunger.
But Guterres said that “the world has scored a failure” on this mission.
He added, at a press conference in New York to unveil the latest tally of progress made on those goals, “Our failure to secure peace, confront climate change, and enhance international financing undermines development.”
“We must accelerate work to achieve the sustainable development goals, and we do not have time to waste. Only 17 percent of the goals are on track,” he stressed.
Efforts to allocate funds to achieve these goals have been repeatedly setbacks, including due to the COVID-19 pandemic, crises in Ukraine and the Middle East, worsening climate disasters and sharp increases in the cost of living.
Guterres said that while countries were lagging behind in progress in many areas, there were glimmers of hope in reducing new HIV infections, increasing access to the Internet, and the “growing” use of renewable energy sources.
“Depriving so many people of basic needs is outrageous and unjustifiable,” he added.
Guterres said action was needed to bring peace to major conflicts raging around the world alongside efforts to transition to green.
“This means doubling the lending capacity of multilateral development banks to provide more resources for climate action and sustainable development,” he explained.
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