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The latest Sustainable Development Report has just been released, giving us a fresh assessment of global efforts to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Can the world still work together to tackle our biggest shared challenges in the final years towards the 2030 deadline? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Dr Guillaume Lafortune, Vice President of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Head of SDSN Asia. He is the lead author and coordinator of the Sustainable Development Report 2026.
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00:10Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This.
00:14This is the show where we want you to consider and reconsider what you know of the news of the
00:18day.
00:19The latest Sustainable Development Report has just been released
00:23and it gives us a fresh assessment of global efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
00:31Now we're in the final years heading towards the 2030 deadline,
00:36so the questions we want to ask tonight is whether or not the world can still work together on tackling
00:42some of our biggest shared challenges
00:45and what are the obstacles or the biggest obstacles to progress.
00:49So joining me on the show to discuss this further, I have Dr. Guillaume LaFortune who is Vice President of
00:56the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
00:59He's also the head of UNSDSN Asia and he's also the Lead Coordinator of the Sustainable Development Report 2026.
01:09Guillaume, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.
01:12Thank you Melissa.
01:13So I'm looking through the report and I'm looking at the current rates of progress
01:18and what strikes me as something maybe I had already suspected but now we see this,
01:24that none of the 17 SDGs will be achieved by 2030.
01:30In fact, only 16.5% are on track globally.
01:35So let's talk a little bit about that.
01:38We'll begin on a somber note.
01:41Maybe you can describe the state of the Global Sustainable Development Goals today.
01:46Yeah, so the exact percentage is 16% right now of indeed targets that are on track to be achieved.
01:55And you're perfectly right, Melissa, to say that none of the 17 SDGs at the global level are on track
02:01to be achieved.
02:02Of course, the global averages, they also mask very different realities across regions and countries.
02:09And in fact, one of the things that the report underlines is the positive progress and the strong progress of
02:16the East and South Asia actually on this agenda.
02:21But at the global level indeed, we're not moving fast enough towards these goals.
02:26So that's the bad news from the report.
02:28And I guess this, you know, this is not about, you know, there was nothing wrong with the goals themselves.
02:37I think it's the failures of, you know, global governance and national governance as well.
02:42Those goals are all in principle achievable.
02:46But we need to get our act together and think collectively about how are we going to implement these goals.
02:52So that's the bad news.
02:53I just want to say there's a good news.
02:55What is the good news?
02:56The good news is that the world remains committed towards achieving these goals.
03:03We see it at least in two ways.
03:05First of all, when we look at the way countries vote at the UN General Assembly,
03:10there's not strong opposition to those resolutions that talk about sustainable development.
03:16One country is against it very clearly, the United States of America.
03:19But we don't see a lot of countries lining up behind the U.S. opposing this paradigm.
03:24We also see it because 10 years after their adoption, 190 countries presented their action plans,
03:30what we call voluntary national review at the UN, out of 193 UN member states.
03:35So there is still commitment, but we need to move to implementation.
03:38Okay. So can we delve into some of these goals?
03:41Maybe not all are progressing at the same rate.
03:43So talk to me a little bit about which goals are on track and which goals are particularly off track.
03:52There are some that have major challenges, yes?
03:54Yeah, absolutely.
03:55So most of the targets and goals that are on track are related to essentially basic access to services and
04:04infrastructure.
04:05So there is progress in general in access to electricity or access to Internet, for instance, and some digital infrastructure.
04:14So here we do see in general some progress.
04:20Where there are major challenges, I guess we can group it in three sort of groups.
04:26So one is around SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities.
04:33There's still a lot of issues and territorial gaps in SDG implementation.
04:38The second one is around basically the goals related to biodiversity.
04:43So SDG 14, life below water, SDG 15, life on land.
04:48I would also argue SDG 2 on sustainable agri-food system.
04:52Every country in the world faces issues around sustainable agriculture and diets.
04:56And then the third one, and I think this is no surprise to you, Melissa, is around peace, justice, strong
05:02institutions.
05:02So we do see also a reversal in progress towards peaceful societies and also strong institutions and including also freedom
05:13of the press in many parts of the world.
05:15Are there countries that have been demonstrating that you can create progress on SDGs despite what may have been, you
05:25know, very challenging global environments in the past couple of years?
05:28Yeah, absolutely. There's no reason for not making progress on this agenda.
05:33Actually, when you are in peace, when your leadership is committed, when you have fiscal space, I would add to
05:40this when you are not, you know, too vulnerable perhaps to major climate events, which can really have, you know,
05:48disruptive effects.
05:49And I'm thinking about small island states, for instance, that are very vulnerable to increased natural disasters and climate related
05:57events.
05:57But if you have these, if these conditions are met, countries are making progress.
06:03Those sound like ideal conditions. How many countries have, are in those conditions currently?
06:09So first of all, as I said at the beginning, East and South Asia as a region is making a
06:14lot of progress.
06:15If we compare to the baseline in 2015, for instance, India progressed by 18 ranks in the report, China by
06:2314 ranks.
06:25And related to the commitment, I would argue that China, for instance, has, for instance, of course, adopted recently its
06:3115th five year plan.
06:33It has long tradition, of course, about long term planning, which is, you know, part of the elements that is
06:39useful when you want to implement the SDGs, the ability to think far into the future.
06:45But I'm thinking also about other parts of the world. So in Central Asia, there's countries like Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan
06:51that are making also great progress.
06:53And in some Saharan Africa country that with whom I've been working for a long time, Benin, for instance, is
06:59making a lot of progress.
07:00And perhaps just to say, you know, countries like Uzbekistan and Benin are countries that decided to structure financial instruments,
07:06sovereign financial instruments around the SDGs.
07:08So they were among the first countries to issue SDG bond framework, for instance.
07:13So, yeah, there is also a lot of good news, actually.
07:20Right. Earlier, you mentioned that the good news that's coming up from the report is that countries are committed to
07:27the goals.
07:29So the SDGs were really built around the idea that global challenges really need collective action from all of us
07:34together.
07:35Is that thinking still, does that still hold? Is that assumption under threat given all the, you mentioned the US
07:43a little bit earlier, the US has moved into active opposition of SDGs.
07:48How much of that throws a span in the works? Are we sharing the same ideas of global cooperation to
07:58tackle today's challenges?
07:59Yeah. So there's a number of issues, whether we talk about climate change or even, you know, potentially some dangerous
08:06technologies or technologies that have the ability to disrupt societies like AI.
08:12And we saw it also during COVID as well, the potential for biotechnologies also to disrupt basically the entire world.
08:20So these require global cooperation. And that's why, you know, the UN as the main institution that supports global cooperation
08:30is so critical.
08:32But I would also argue actually that beyond, you know, global governance, we also need regional governance.
08:38So I think, you know, for instance, cooperation among the ASEAN countries is critical, but also in the EU.
08:43I've worked a lot with the EU institutions in the past. So, you know, when you talk about energy decarbonization,
08:51energy grid lines, but also digital infrastructure, regional cooperation is very beneficial.
08:56Then you have issues that truly are at the national level, often health system, education system.
09:01And then many issues must be tackled also through improved governance at the local level.
09:05So I think this is really part of the next year of sustainable development is to think about how each
09:11issue must be tackled at different levels.
09:13But, Melissa, there are clearly issues that require global cooperation for sure.
09:18And this is, of course, a very important year for the UN because we will have in a few months
09:23a new UN Secretary General, of course.
09:26And on my question about the U.S. and how significant has the U.S.'s active opposition towards the SDGs
09:32been?
09:33Is that a significant concern, particularly someone who's devoted security to working on that?
09:38Well, I think it's interesting what's going on in the U.S.
09:41So, I mean, first of all, what is happening at the federal level is not representative necessarily of what the
09:46people are thinking,
09:47but also what the state and municipalities are doing when it comes to sustainable development.
09:52But as you say, Melissa, there is now very explicit opposition of the federal government of the United States to
09:59the 2030 Agenda,
10:00the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement.
10:05We'll see how long this will last.
10:07There are, of course, elections coming up soon in the U.S.
10:13But the point here and why I think, you know, what we see at the UN in terms of voting
10:20patterns is important,
10:22is that we haven't seen many, many countries lining up behind the U.S. in their oppositions to the SDGs
10:29and to this paradigm of sustainable development.
10:32There's the U.S. I would say there's also Argentina that is opposing quite systematically these resolutions.
10:39But other than that, the rest of the world remains very much committed and engaged in setting up global processes
10:46to implement the goals.
10:47Okay. Are you concerned that there's not much time left?
10:50When we think about we are in the final, was it less than four years to the 2030 quote-unquote
10:57deadline,
10:58is that what do you think should be the priorities over the next four years?
11:03Yeah, well, the priority is implementation.
11:06You know, I think...
11:08We know the problems.
11:09We know the problems.
11:10We have a framework.
11:12Now we need to be serious about implementation, implementing those goals.
11:16And this has to do with strengthening governance system.
11:19We talked about it at the global, continental, national, sub-national level.
11:25In many parts of the world, it also has to do with fixing issues around what we call the global
11:30financial architecture.
11:32So making sure that a larger share of global savings are channeled towards investment and sustainable development.
11:39So the lack of fiscal space is really an issue in many parts of the world.
11:44So I would say those are the big priorities.
11:46Okay.
11:47The implementation, and it has to do with governance systems, but also with financing these goals.
11:52Can I get you to elaborate on that, Guillaume?
11:54So financing, the report highlighted financing is one of the biggest challenges.
11:57For those of us who aren't familiar with the dynamics of international development financing,
12:04maybe you can tell us or walk us through what really is at the heart of this being a major
12:09obstacle.
12:11Yeah.
12:11Let me perhaps just take a step back and say that even before even thinking about governance framework and financing,
12:19recommitting to the UN charter and making sure that we prevent conflicts and end them in a diplomatic and quick
12:30way when they occur is critical.
12:32Not only because, of course, you know, conflicts generate massive destruction of infrastructure and human lives,
12:39and that's the direct negative effects on the SDGs, but also because there are huge distractions for policy attention.
12:47I mean, we see it in Europe, for instance, where when you look at the latest program of the European
12:52Commission,
12:53it doesn't, you know, make any more reference to this agenda, for instance, because the security issues,
12:59now increasingly also the competitiveness issues is at the heart of policy making.
13:04But also, and this is connected to your question, it creates distraction on how to allocate resources with increased spending
13:11being used for military expenditure.
13:13And we see a surge of spending in military expenditure.
13:17And to the question on financing, I mean, this is, of course, a major topic for the UN, but also
13:23the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank, the IMF.
13:27But the bottom line is that at the global level, there's an estimate that comes from the UN that says
13:32that essentially for developing
13:34countries, the annual SDG financing gap is about 4% of global GDP.
13:41So roughly speaking, 4 trillion USD a year.
13:45So for people like you and me, Melissa, this is a lot of money, of course.
13:48But at the scale of the global economy, again, let's remember that global GDP is about 120 trillion.
13:55So it's a small portion of that. And at the scales of global savings, which is roughly speaking 30 trillion
14:00USD,
14:01this is all manageable.
14:03If we work together to set up the regulations and make sure that we can unlock more access to long
14:11term and affordable financing to countries that need it.
14:15And that's the issue. How to channel a bigger share of global savings to investments in sustainable development.
14:20Can you give me an example so that I can imagine what that might look like in practice?
14:25Right. Well, for instance, many developing countries right now borrow at rates that are extremely high, sometimes 10% or
14:32even higher than this.
14:34So the cost of capital is very, very high. And then the maturities on the loans are extremely short.
14:41So this is the perfect recipe for, you know, hitting a liquidity crisis.
14:46And there are ways to actually unlock access to long term and more affordable capital.
14:52It has to do with, for instance, those multilateral development banks, for instance, because, you know, multilateral development banks can
15:02borrow.
15:03They are usually rated much better than national their national countries that compose those banks.
15:09And so they can borrow and lead at better rates. And if we could, you know, increase their capacities to
15:16operate and increase the scale of their operations,
15:19that could unlock a lot of capital to invest in sustainable development. So that's one solution.
15:23We've been also working on adjustments to credit rating methodologies as well.
15:30And there's many, many other. I mean, I think it's also time perhaps to think about global taxation, by the
15:35way, whether it's of, you know, shipping or CO2 emissions or financial transactions.
15:45We need mechanisms to properly also fund the UN and also investments in the global commons as well.
15:53It really does boil down to the money, doesn't it?
15:55Something you said a bit earlier is really quite interesting when you talked about recommitting to the UN Charter and
16:01peace is essentially the foundation for each of the SDGs.
16:07Can you talk to me a little bit more about what are the lessons that you have learnt from the
16:13time that we've had to implement some of the SDGs?
16:16So peace, recommitting and peace being the top one. Talk to me a little bit about other lessons that were
16:22learnt in the last decade or so since the goals were implemented.
16:26Well, yeah, I think the main lesson is that, you know, the main recipe for progress on this agenda is,
16:33of course, peaceful societies.
16:34That's the backbone for everything. Then strong leadership. And by leadership, I mean having a plan.
16:42Then once you have a plan, figuring out how you're going to finance it, then setting up a monitoring framework
16:50so you can track whether you're making progress over time.
16:55And then making sure that you're also mobilising all of the right stakeholders in society.
17:02And of course, at SDSN, we work a lot with scientific institutions that can bring some of the technical solutions
17:08as well, but essentially setting up governance framework that work out quite well.
17:13Guillaume, have you seen a difference between governments who actually, rather than have kind of a separate framework for SDGs,
17:21but in fact use them more central in their policy and decision making as opposed to seeing it as a
17:30reporting exercise?
17:31Right.
17:32We've seen some governments do that and I'm sure you know the difference between the ones who really embody SDGs
17:40in their policy thinking.
17:41Right. Well, at SDSN, we work with specifically with a number of countries. I mentioned some of them. But again,
17:46I just want to emphasise also, I think there's some positive frameworks in China that, you know, including when it
17:59comes to long term planning.
18:00And what I just said before, also, you know, thinking, having a vision, then once you have a plan, really
18:06implementing the plan, financing it, but also mobilising stakeholders.
18:11So experts, scientists, business leaders, the utilities to make sure that you're getting the right inputs and so on. So
18:19I think there's probably some lessons to learn from the Chinese experience over the past decades, actually.
18:27But I also, you know, see some good examples, as I said, in Central Asia or in some countries in
18:33sub-Saharan Africa as well.
18:35I would argue that the EU had the right approach with the adoption of the European Green Deal in 2019,
18:41was on the right track.
18:43And of course, European countries are still at the top of the ranking. If you look at the report for,
18:48you know, historical reasons, and Europe has been very committed to this agenda.
18:51The Treaty of Lisbon already in 2007 was making reference to the sustainable development paradigm.
18:58What derailed a little bit the trajectory for Europe is the war in Ukraine since 2022 and the growing attention
19:04on conflict.
19:05So that's why we always go back to the issue of peace at the end of the day, which is
19:09the precondition for progress on this agenda.
19:12What about Malaysia? Where does Malaysia sit in terms of our approach to SDGs as central to policy making?
19:20Yeah, I think the overwhelming news from the report from Malaysia is actually quite positive overall.
19:29So Malaysia, you know, does quite well overall.
19:35It is on par within the ranking with Indonesia, with more or less the Philippines a bit better than Brunei
19:42also.
19:45And, you know, there's still, you know, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore a bit ahead in the region.
19:50But it does, of course, much better than countries like Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
19:56There's progress in general that we see, especially on SDG 1, for instance, on the poverty issues.
20:04One thing that I think is quite interesting also is that the statistical capacity, there's very few missing data that
20:11we have for Malaysia as well.
20:14There's challenges mainly around SDG 2 on sustainable agriculture, diets, food systems, SDG 5 on gender equality.
20:24There's still very few, for instance, women in national parliament in Malaysia, SDG 10 on inequalities and also SDG 15
20:33on deforestation and life on land and things like this.
20:37But overall, we see very strong commitment in Malaysia.
20:41And just to mention one issue that stands out is, for instance, the commitment of local and state authorities towards
20:48this agenda.
20:49So Malaysia at the national level has presented three times its action plans to the UN on the SDGs via
20:57voluntary national reviews.
20:58But we see a lot of local and state authorities in Malaysia thinking part is what's called a voluntary local
21:04review.
21:06So presenting their plans for SDG implementation.
21:10It's actually one of the countries in the world where there's been the highest momentum around voluntary local reviews.
21:14That's very encouraging at the local level.
21:16Okay.
21:16So in the time that we have left, I want to move the conversation to post 2030.
21:22Okay.
21:23I understand that there will be a SDG summit next year, if I'm not mistaken,
21:30that will kind of gather everyone to maybe rethink how we can do this final push.
21:37So let's talk a little bit about that.
21:40How much should we preserve the SDGs?
21:43Do we think of this as 2030 as a deadline?
21:46Do we reassess and redesign the SDGs?
21:50What are you thinking about when you think about a world after 2030?
21:55Yeah.
21:56So let me start first perhaps just with a word on timeline and agenda.
22:00Sure.
22:00So we are sitting here in June 2026.
22:04In a few weeks, almost a few days, there will be the High Level Political Forum,
22:10which is sort of the annual forum at the UN where countries present their action plans, their VNRs.
22:14Then there will be the UN General Assembly in September.
22:16A new UN Secretary General will be appointed probably by October, taking up his or her duties in January.
22:25We have, of course, COP hosted by Turkey and Australia, organized by both countries, but hosted in Turkey in November.
22:35And then fast forward in September 2027, we'll have the SDG summit at heads of state level.
22:40And this SDG summit happens every four years.
22:43And this will be the official start of the negotiations for the post 2030 discussion in the next era of
22:49sustainable development.
22:50My opinion, perhaps we don't need to dramatically change the actual framework itself.
22:56We don't necessarily need three new letters and 17 new colors.
23:01I think the framework, I mean, I don't even know what I would remove in terms of goals or targets.
23:05Perhaps we need a little bit more on AI, robotics, digital.
23:09This was back in 2015.
23:10Some of the newer challenges.
23:11Yeah, in 2015, it was not at the center of this.
23:15But I think today we, you know, it's hard to leave this aside.
23:20But the focus should be on implementation.
23:22Having a strong implementation come past and having countries really thinking through what have we learned over the past decade?
23:28What did we do well, do a little bit less well?
23:31And what do we need to emphasize to implement the goals rather than redefining a completely different framework?
23:38Continuity is good.
23:40And perhaps just to say on Malaysia, what Malaysia can contribute to this.
23:43Well, Malaysia should continue to be committed to UN-based multilateralism.
23:46What you have in the report is also a metric for UN-based multilateralism.
23:51And we see tremendous support from Malaysia in terms of ratification of UN treaties, voting alignment with the rest of
23:58the international community.
24:00Malaysia is one of the countries that pays its dues annually to the UN systematically on time, you know.
24:07And this is not the case of all countries around the world.
24:09So we need Malaysia to continue to do this and the strong leadership at the top of government on this.
24:14And then perhaps just to say, because it just came out yesterday at the university level, there's now sustainability rankings
24:21as well that are coming out.
24:24And I think, you know, the university will do the in-person launch.
24:28Sunway University was ranked in the top 50 in terms of sustainability.
24:31So I think this commitment also of the education sector in Malaysia is also very good and should be continued
24:37towards 2030, but also beyond.
24:39Are you excited for a post 2030 agenda?
24:43I mean, I can imagine it must be quite disheartening when you see progress stalling or not being able to
24:50achieve or being on track to achieve some of the dreams for our world.
24:54But are you excited about what will come next? Are you optimistic about it?
24:57I'm excited about what comes next. But I don't I also don't want to forget that we still have four
25:02years to go before 2030.
25:05So we should not, you know, just push back and say, OK, we'll implement all of this after 2030.
25:09There's still things that can be done between now and 2030.
25:13Again, I really want to emphasize the diplomacy aspect, ending the wars, the conflicts and then the financing issue to
25:22me are the two top priorities.
25:24And I think there's things that can be done between now and 2030.
25:27And then, yes, I think there will be formal negotiations.
25:30I think there's perhaps value in aligning the framework for sustainable development with the Paris Climate Agreement.
25:37So perhaps the next set of goals can be oriented towards mid century 2050.
25:42But I think, as I said today, there's many examples around the world where we do see progress.
25:47And the report does point out at some regions where people, scientists, but also civil society are actually quite optimistic
25:56about the progress that their country is making.
25:58And a lot of these countries are actually in East and South Asia.
26:01Wonderful. Giyom, thank you so much for being on the show.
26:03Thank you, Melissa. It's been such a joy talking to you.
26:05It was a pleasure. Thank you for your time.
26:05Thank you so much.
26:06That's all the time we have for you on this episode of Consider This.
26:09I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening.
26:11Thank you so much for watching and good night.
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