UN Effort to Improve Lives Is Flunking

The United Nations has warned that only 17% of its 169 targets to improve life for the world's more than 7 billion people are on track to be reached by the 2030 deadline. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched the annual report saying, "It shows the world is getting a failing grade." World leaders adopted the 17 wide-ranging development goals, including ending global poverty to achieving gender equality, in 2015, setting 169 specific targets to be reached by the end of the decade. According to the report, released Friday, per the AP, nearly half the targets show minimal or moderate progress, and over one-third are stalled or regressing.

"The takeaway is simple," Guterres said. "Our failure to secure peace, to confront climate change, and to boost international finance is undermining development." The report also cited the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and said an additional 23 million people were pushed into extreme poverty and over 100 million more were suffering from hunger in 2022 compared to 2019. "In a world of unprecedented wealth, knowledge and technologies, the denial of basic needs for so many is outrageous and unacceptable," Guterres said. For the first time this century, per-capita GDP growth in half of the world's most vulnerable nations is slower than that of advanced economies, threatening improvements in equality. In 2022, the report said, nearly 60% of countries faced moderate to abnormally high food prices.

Education goals are far offtrack. Only 58% of students worldwide achieved minimum proficiency in reading by the end of primary school, and many countries show a significant decline in math and reading scores, the report said. Gender equality lags: One in five girls marry before age 18, violence against women persists, many women don't have the right to decide on their sexual and reproductive health—and at current rates, it will take 176 years for women to reach parity with men in management positions. Hopeful signs, Guterres said, include the availability of mobile broadband, up from 78% in 2015 to 95%, and increases in global capacity to generate electricity from renewable. He called for ending wars from Gaza to Ukraine, Sudan and beyond, "and to pivot from spending on destruction and war to investing in people and peace."

(More United Nations stories.)