The 2024 report on “Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals in the Arab region” by the United Nations provides an overview of progress made on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 169 targets and the 231 indicators in the Arab region. The report showcases evidence on the increasing commitment in the Arab region towards achieving the SDGs, yet it recognizes the exogenous and endogenous impediments to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda), including the data gap that prevents sound and reliable assessment of progress.
The report identifies areas where emphasis should be placed over the next years to support countries in meeting the agreed SDGs. The implementation of the 2030 Agenda has faced many challenges and obstacles, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, geopolitical conflicts, increasing inequalities and violent conflicts slowing down the SDG progress across all countries. The Arab region, however, managed to reverse the backward trends of some SDGs in the previous years, but remained very distant from the 2023 threshold level.
As per the available data, the assessment shows that the Arab region is far from the 2030 target, which needs an estimated additional period of 60 years to be met at the current pace. With less than seven years left to 2030, the Arab region must undertake serious actions to build resilience in the face of growing challenges. Arab countries must adopt effective policies that foster the implementation of SDGs and initiate national statistical strategies to close data gaps critical for effective monitoring.
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