SDGs Review: India Makes Progress on Some While Challenges Remain in Other

Sustainable Development Goals_image

Every year, MoSPI releases a Progress Report on SDGs containing time series data, along with two additional publications derived from this report. While there has been significant progress on some goals, challenges remain in other SDGs. As per the UN SDG Goals report 2024, India is ranked 109 out of 167 countries based on SDG performance.

SDGs, or Sustainable Development Goals, are a set of 17 global objectives adopted by the United Nations in 2015. They aim to address global challenges such as poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, and justice by 2030, promoting sustainable development for all nations and people worldwide.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation of the Government of India has a National Indicator Framework (NIF) for the SDGs to align with national priorities. This framework, developed in consultation with various stakeholders including UN agencies, facilitates the monitoring of SDG progress at the national level. As of 29 June 2024, there are 290 national SDG indicators in the NIF, across the 17 SDG Goals. 

Since 2007, the Government of India has been celebrating 29 June annually as ‘Statistics Day’ to commemorate the birth anniversary of the late Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, honouring his significant contributions to Economic Planning and Statistics. Every year, on the same day, MoSPI releases a Progress Report on SDGs containing time series data and two additional publications derived from this report. The reports for 2024 were released on the same day, this year. It provides time series data on national SDG indicators. The major data sources for these SDG national indicators are administrative data, surveys and censuses. Secondary data from concerned Ministries has been used to compile the indicators.

Significant progress in terms of reducing poverty, vaccinating children, and enrolment in schools

Some key progress areas highlighted in the report are given below. 

Anaemia, suicide rates, and crimes against women and children have increased in India

While substantial progress has been achieved in certain indicators, there remains considerable disparity in others. A few instances of these are outlined below.

India is ranked 109 out of 167 countries on SDG performance

According to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024, India is ranked 109 out of 167 countries based on SDG performance. Countries are given a score from 0 to 100 based on their performance. Finland has the highest score with 86.4 while India has a score of 64 as against the regional average of 66.5 for East and South Asia. Countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Mexico have a higher score than India.

Indi’s progress is slower or stagnated for majority of the SDGs

The report also shows that India is on track/maintaining its progress with respect to only 2 SDGs: SDG 1: No Poverty and SDG 4: Quality Education. Of the remaining 15 goals, India’s progress has moderately improved for 8 goals and has stagnated for 5 goals. Meanwhile, there has been a decline in progress for SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 13: Climate Action.

Source: UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024

The World is largely off track to realize the 2030 Agenda

On average, only 16% of the SDGs are likely to be achieved globally by 2030. The other 84% are either making slow progress or are moving backwards. Progress towards these goals has been slow since 2020, especially for SDGs related to ending hunger, building sustainable cities, protecting life below water and on land, and promoting justice and strong institutions. In short, the world is severely off track to realize the 2030 Agenda.

Five specific targets have particularly fallen behind since 2015: reducing obesity (SDG 2), ensuring press freedom (SDG 16), improving the Red List Index for species conservation (SDG 15), managing nitrogen sustainably (SDG 2), and maintaining life expectancy (SDG 3), which has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors.

While there’s slightly more positive movement in achieving basic infrastructure and services goals (like those in SDG 9), overall progress remains slow and uneven across different countries.

Another UN report, the 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development Report, states that the money needed to meet the SDGs and address climate change amounts to trillions of dollars. This funding gap is especially critical in many developing countries. Meanwhile, global challenges like geopolitical tensions, climate disasters, and high living costs have harmed billions of people, slowing progress in healthcare, education, and other development areas. The report estimated that $4.2 trillion is required to bridge this financing gap. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, this figure was $2.5 trillion.