Progress Charts

The Sustainable Development Goals Progress Chart 2021 presents a snapshot of global and regional progress towards selected targets under the 17 Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The assessment is based on the most up-to-date data available. However, the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet known. Moreover, since 2020, the pandemic has disrupted statistical operations worldwide, limiting the ability of many national statistical offices to deliver the data needed to monitor progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The progress chart shows that the world was already off track in realizing the ambitions and fulfilling the commitments of the 2030 Agenda, even before COVID-19. As the pandemic continues to unfold, it is also magnifying deeply rooted problems: insufficient social protection, weak public health systems and inadequate health coverage, structural inequalities, environmental degradation and climate change. It is a crisis as well as an opportunity to make the transformations needed to deliver on the promise of the 2030 Agenda.

The progress chart presents two types of information: 1) a trend assessment using stoplight colours to measure progress towards the target (from a baseline year to the most recent data point), and 2) a level assessment using a gauge meter to measure the current level of development with respect to the distance from a target, using the latest data. The chart is based on a limited number of indicators and on information available as of June 2021. A baseline year of around 2015 or 2010 is used for the trend assessment. For most of the indicators, the latest available data are from 2019 to 2020; for a few indicators, the data are from 2017.