The UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has published its annual assessment of progress towards the SDGs in the region. With 21 targets assessed as being on track, the region will only achieve 18% of measurable targets by 2030, the report warns. In 2022, the UNECE region was on track to achieve 26 targets.

The report titled, ‘Growing Challenges for Sustainable Development: Can the UNECE Region Turn the Tide in 2023?’ finds progress must accelerate for 79 targets, up from 64 last year. The current trend needs to be reversed for 15 targets, same as in 2022.

The UNECE region comprises 56 countries of Europe, North America, and Central Asia. It is home to 16% of the world’s population and accounts for 41.4% of the world’s GDP at purchasing power parity. The region is also responsible for around 83% of total Official Development Assistance (ODA).

According to the report, the UNECE region is on track to achieve targets on:

• Extreme poverty and access to basic services (targets 1.1 and 1.4);
• Maternal and child mortality (targets 3.1 and 3.2);
• Education facilities (target 4.a);
• Technology for women’s empowerment (target 5.b);
• Safe drinking water (target 6.1);
• Access to energy services (target 7.1);
• Strategy for youth employment (target 8.b);
• Sustainable and inclusive industrialization, sustainable and clean industries, and access to information and communication technology (ICT) and the Internet (targets 9.2, 9.4, and 9.c);
• Remittance costs (target 10.c);
• Housing and basic services, urban air quality and waste management, and disaster risk management (DRM) policies (targets 11.1, 11.6, and 11.b);
• Fisheries subsidies and small-scale artisanal fishing (targets 14.6 and 14.b);
• Corruption and bribery (target 16.5); and
• International cooperation on science and technology, and capacity building for ICT (targets 17.6 and 17.8).

The five SDG targets the region was on track to achieve by 2030 in 2022 and now needs to redouble efforts on are: 2.1 (undernourishment and food security); 3.6 (road traffic accidents); 4.2 (early childhood development); 4.c (qualified teachers); and 10.7 (safe migration and mobility).   

The region is not on track to achieve any of the targets of SDGs 12 (responsible consumption and production), 13 (climate action), and 15 (life on land). According to the assessment, fossil fuel subsidies are on the rise in half of countries with data (target 12.c). A UNECE press release notes that this trend makes it “unlikely” for the region to achieve its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets by 2030 (target 13.2). With fewer than one-third of countries having decreased species’ extinction risk since 2015, the region is failing to halt biodiversity loss (target 15.5). 

While data availability for monitoring the SDGs is improving, the report acknowledges that data for 2022 are not available for the majority of targets and indicators. As a result, the assessment does not reflect the impacts of the war in Ukraine. “With [its impacts] not yet reflected in available data, next year’s measurements are bound to be even worse,” said UNECE Executive Secretary Olga Algayerova at the assessment’s launch. 

Highlighting the SDG Summit in September as “a turning point” where countries “make clear commitments to rescue the SDGs,” Algayerova said “[t]his is the only way to live up to our collective promise to leave no one behind.”   

The assessment includes trends since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for 125 out of the 156 indicators used in the report. In addition to assessing SDG progress, the report presents stories by agencies, UN country teams, and UNECE programmes of work showing “concrete ways in which the international community is making change happen.”

The report is the fourth annual assessment of the state of the region’s progress towards the SDGs. It is the flagship document that will inform deliberations at the UNECE Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (RFSD), which will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 29-30 March 2023. [Publication: Growing Challenges for Sustainable Development: Can the UNECE Region Turn the Tide in 2023?] [Online Report] [UNECE Press Release] [SDG Knowledge Hub Story on UNECE Regional Forum on Sustainable Development 2022]