Societies around the world are navigating many complicated economic, social, and environmental issues at once. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put a framework and metrics to many of these diverse problems. This paper finds that despite ongoing global strains, the human condition has improved on several fronts since 2015 – but improvement alone does not meet the higher normative standards established in the SDGs. More international, time-bound, and systematic changes in approaches to achieving the SDGs are needed to meet the 2030 deadline.

This paper distills key patterns amid global complexity to present eight key findings across four tests of progress.

Four tests of progress

• Does the world look different today on SDG indicators than in 2015: Is the world getting better? 
• Have there been any shifts in underlying trends since 2015: Has the SDG period been a period of accelerated improvement or slowdowns in progress?
• Is the world on track to meet its agreed SDG ambitions by the 2030 deadline?
• Are there any threshold effects, beyond which changes are abrupt and difficult, if not impossible to reverse?

Eight findings

1. In considering how the world looks today compared to 2015, things are better on most indicators, even if none are currently on track for their 2030 targets.
2. In comparing pre- and post-2015 country rates of progress, three indicators – HIV incidence, access to antiretroviral treatment, and access to electricity – registered accelerated gains since 2015, while eight have seen no change, and nine have seen a slowdown in the rate of progress.
3. A longer-term assessment of trends shows that many shortfalls in the SDGs were apparent before the crises of the 2020s.
4. When looking at country-level accelerations and slowdowns across indicators, there is no single story on how individual countries are doing on the SDGs, and there is limited correlation between issues. 
5. When translating current trajectories for SDG shortfalls to absolute numbers of people affected, huge numbers of people will be left behind on specific issues.
6. SDG shortfalls on mortality indicators add up to more than 34 million additional estimated lives lost from 2024 through 2030. 
7. The geographic concentration of people left behind differs by issue.
8. Even where environmental progress since 2015 is clear, the pace may not be fast enough to avoid nature’s potentially imminent tipping points.