The Sustainable Development Goals Summit of 2023 marked an essential high-level commitment to accelerate progress towards Agenda 2030. Agreeing to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Rescue Plan for People and Planet, world leaders injected new confidence in the ability to deliver a better future. However, with the resounding impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the continuous war against Ukraine, the shocks arising from climate change, the high interest rates and still-elevated inflation, efforts to advance towards the SDGs are facing strong headwinds, both globally and in the region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
These challenges remind us again of the pressing need for international cooperation and solidarity, as well as of the importance of scaling up action at regional and country level. With these commitments at its core, the eighth UNECE Regional Forum on Sustainable Development is being organized in 2024, bringing stakeholders together to promote action, find solutions and foster peer learning to achieve the sustainability transformation in the UNECE region.
To inform the debate, it is essential to know where the region stands in fulfilling the 2030 Agenda, examining which targets are on track to be achieved and which are not. The Regional SDG Progress Report provides this information, revealing some of the adverse impacts of the crises on the prospects for achieving the SDGs. Progress remains on track for only a few targets, and the areas in which trends must be turned around have been increasing in the last years.
Looking ahead to the Summit of the Future in September 2024 – the next global opportunity to reinvigorate the SDGs – we all recognize that these Goals are our future, providing us with hope and steering our actions. This report presents stories by the United Nations country teams, international agencies, and all UNECE programme areas. Those stories keep hope alive, illustrating the actions of the countries and the international community that make change happen.
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Palais des Nations, Geneva
