Prez highlights realities of realising Sustainable Development Goals, questions if targets are even achievable

President Ranil Wickremesinghe placed the realities of the achievement of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) under the spotlight in New York, asserting that the current state of SDG advancement is globally unsatisfactory.

He pointed out that only 12 percent of the targets are on track while no progress has been made in 30 percent of the other critical targets.

Wickremesinghe drew attention to the backdrop of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by United Nations Member States in 2015 and Paris Agreement, a landmark pact adopted by 196 countries at COP21, both of which emerged as major progressive global initiatives.

Wickremesinghe noted that despite these ambitious endeavours, there has been a severe scarcity of resources dedicated to their successful implementation.

“The global pandemic that unfolded in 2020 dealt a devastating blow to these programmes. Economic growth stagnated and numerous sectors witnessed a complete absence of economic activity.

This exacerbated the already existing global debt crisis, pushing many nations, including Sri Lanka, to the brink of bankruptcy. The looming question now is whether the SDGs remain achievable in the current, resource-constrained scenario,” he told the SDG Summit.

Taking Sri Lanka as an example, Wickremesinghe revealed that prior estimates in 2019 indicated that approximately 9 percent of the country’s GDP would need to be invested to attain these ambitious targets.
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However, the economic fallout from the pandemic and ensuing crisis have made this goal increasingly unrealistic. He went on to underscore the fact that Sri Lanka’s climate prosperity plan alone requires a substantial investment of US $ 26.5 billion before 2030, a sum that is increasingly challenging to secure.

Wickremesinghe called for a critical examination of these goals and assess if they are feasible in the face of the unprecedented financial calamity affecting many nations.