UN Sustainable Development Goals: Losing the race

In 2015, the United Nations (UN) agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), summarized in the Agenda 2030. According to these goals, the world should be eradicated from hunger and poverty by 2030, and all people should have access to education, clean water, and reliable energy. Gender equality and limiting the global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) were also on the list.

Now, at the halfway mark, it has already become clear that most of these goals will not be met. A special UN report found that about 30% of the goals set have seen either no improvement or reverse trends. If the world stays on the current trajectory, the UN estimates that over 600 million people will suffer from hunger in 2030. 

"The goals were certainly ambitious, but they would have been attainable with the right political will. But not enough states took their commitment seriously," Johannes Varwick, a political scientist and an expert on international relations at the University of Halle, told DW. 

One further problem he saw was that international relations were always "short-term and conflict-driven." He added that "crises like the 2008 global financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, or the war in Ukraine have shifted priorities. While this may be understandable, it is also short-sighted."

German government pinching pennies

Despite this, the 193 UN member states have recommitted themselves to the SDGs. The new declaration states: "We will act with urgency to realize [the Agenda 2030] vision as a plan of action for people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership, leaving no one behind." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a "rescue plan" for the SDGs.

"The SDGs aren't just a list of goals," Guterres said. "They carry the hopes, dreams, rights and expectations of people everywhere. In our world of plenty, hunger is a shocking stain on humanity and an epic human rights violation. It is an indictment of every one of us that millions of people are starving in this day and age."

Germany's government has also been making increasingly urgent appeals.

"Time is running out," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during his speech before the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. He added that Germany advocated for "keeping the goals at the top of the international agenda." 

German Development Minister Svenja Schulze also called upon states to step up the tempo.

But critics believe Berlin is partially to blame for the lack of progress. The German Catholic aid organization Misereor, for example, has pointed out that it is "not an encouraging sign" that the upcoming federal budget cut the development aid budget by 15%. The Protestant relief agency Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World) has also criticized German plans to slash the development aid budget.

The climate activist Luisa Neubauer recently described the UN SDG Summit to the German television channel Phoenix this way: "Everyone makes sweeping promises, and then they go home and don't do what they need to do." Germany, Neubauer has said, also does not appear willing to make a meaningful change of course.

Erosion of Western power

While Scholz spoke to a practically empty room, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had all eyes on him in the General Assembly. He used his speech to issue a dire warning of Russian aggression.

But even the amount of attention the UN devotes to the war in Ukraine is a bone of contention. Many countries from the Global South have accused the West of devoting too much of their time and energy to Ukraine and neglecting important issues such as global poverty reduction.

For some time, Russia and 10 other nations had threatened to block a joint declaration from the sustainable goals summit, complaining that sanctions harmed their nations' economic development. Numerous countries did not condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine and have refused to join Western sanctions against Russia.

Varwick said he believes this shows that power has shifted away from the West and towards authoritarian states such as Russia and China.

"The political West lacks followers. The increasing importance of the BRICS+ format, which can also be seen as a direct challenge to Western power, makes this evident," he told DW.

"The G77+China summit in Havana also shows the growing claims of the Global South," he added. But he also stated that he did not see a viable alternative to the UN. "We don't have anything better than the United Nations."

What comes next for the Sustainable Development Goals?

The German government has launched several initiatives. In New York, Scholz and Schulze invited guests to the Hamburg Sustainability Conference in June 2024 "to convene government representatives from the Global North and the Global South, as well as thought leaders from the private sector, science, civil society and international organizations to develop joint solutions for a much-needed social-ecological transformation," Schulze's ministry stated.

Germany is currently celebrating 50 years of UN membership, and, along with co-facilitator Namibia, is planning a UN Summit of the Future for next year. 

This article was translated from German.