UN says development goals progress ‘insufficient’ 10 years on
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The UN says more than 800 million people in the world are still living in extreme poverty.
PHOTO: AFP
UNITED NATIONS, United States - Ten years after the United Nations adopted its Sustainable Development Goals, it said on July 14 that more people now have access to the internet, but major issues like hunger have worsened.
UN member states committed in 2015 to pursuing 17 goals that range from ending extreme poverty and hunger to pursuing gender equality and clean energy by 2030.
In a report published July 14, the United Nations said that 35 per cent of the objectives were advancing, while around half had stagnated and the rest were heading backwards.
This scorecard, it said, showed that the progress was “insufficient.”
Among the most successful was improving access to electricity, with 92 per cent of the world connected by 2023. Internet usage has also risen from 40 per cent to 68 per cent worldwide in the last decade.
Some 110 million more children and young people have entered school since 2015, the report said, while maternal mortality has fallen from 228 deaths per 100,000 births in 2015 to 197 in 2023.
But some goals have receded despite this progress.
In 2023, 757 million people (9.1 per cent of the world’s population) were suffering from hunger, compared with 713 million (7.5 per cent) in 2019, the report said.
Meanwhile, more than 800 million people – around one in 10 people worldwide – are still living in extreme poverty.
“Eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 appears highly unlikely due to slow recovery from Covid-19 impacts, economic instability, climate shocks, and sluggish growth in sub-Saharan Africa,” the report said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres warned at a news conference that the world was facing a global development emergency.
It was, he added, “an emergency measured in the over 800 million people still living in extreme poverty. In intensifying climate impacts. And in relentless debt service, draining the resources that countries need to invest in their people.”
However, Mr Guterres struck a positive tone on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, saying that if they didn’t exist, “many of these achievements would never have been reached.” AFP
