Introduction

Every year, all five United Nations regional commissions organize regional forums on sustainable development for international exchanges among governments and other stakeholders. In the region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which comprises 56 countries of Europe, North America and Central Asia, the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development will be held for the ninth time on 2 and 3 April 2025 in Geneva.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development cannot be fulfilled without relevant and timely statistics to track progress. Data are needed to enable us to understand the overall levels of progress, to design and monitor the results and impact of policy actions, and to identify areas, groups or regions that risk being left behind.

UNECE disseminates knowledge and data on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through its designated platforms – the Knowledge Hub, Dashboard and Database. Guidance for national statistical offices on how to manage a system for statistics and indicators for SDGs is contained in the UNECE Road Map1. Every year since 2020, the UNECE Statistical Division has prepared a report2 on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals in the UNECE region, to inform debates of the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development. This sixth report provides an up-to-date assessment of progress as well as stories about regional and country-level actions for sustainable development.

1 UNECE (2022). Road map on statistics for Sustainable Development Goals – second edition. Geneva: United Nations.

2 UNECE (2020). Towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the UNECE region: a statistical portrait of progress and challenges. Geneva: United Nations. UNECE (2021). Is the UNECE region on track for 2030? Assessment, stories and insights. Geneva: United Nations. UNECE (2022). Halfway to 2030: how many targets will be achieved in the UNECE region? Snapshot and insights in 2022. Geneva: United Nations. UNECE (2023). Growing challenges for sustainable development: can the UNECE region turn the tide in 2023? Geneva: United Nations.UNECE (2024). Sustainable development in the UNECE region: facing a headwind in 2024. Geneva: United Nations.

The assessment covers every goal and target for which there are data and for which it is possible to set a target value. While the assessment looks at the trends at the regional level only, it is understood that variation among countries is sizable in all areas and a trend in any individual country may differ from the general trend observed in the region. The regional assessment presented in the 2025 report relies on the global indicator framework for SDGs3 and the available data on UNECE countries in the United Nations Global SDG Indicators Database as of 20 December 2024. Technical notes on the progress assessment at the end of this report explain the methodology used.

3 United Nations (2022). Global indicator framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Adopted by the General Assembly in A/RES/71/313 (Annex) in 2017. Changes and refinements 2018–2022: E/CN.3/2018/2, E/CN.3/2019/2, E/CN.3/2020/2, E/CN.3/2021/2, E/CN.3/2022/2.

The agencies and United Nations country teams participating in the Regional Coordination Group on Data and Statistics for Europe and Central Asia and all UNECE programmes contributed stories. These stories provide rich insights into the ways in which various regional and country level actions relate to sustainable development outcomes. Most of the stories pertain to the goals that are under in-depth review by the 2025 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development: 3 (good health and well-being), 5 (gender equality), 8 (decent work and economic growth), 14 (life below water) and 17 (partnerships for the goals). The contribution from UN Women provides an overview of gender equality and women’s empowerment (Goal 5) in the region.