On June 24, 2025, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) released the 10th edition of the Sustainable Development Report (SDR) 2025. The SDR includes the SDG Index and Dashboards, which rank all UN Member States on their performance across the 17 Goals, and this year’s report features a new Index (SDGi), which focuses on 17 headline indicators to track overall SDG progress over time. The report outlines urgent reforms to the Global Financial Architecture (GFA) that should be adopted during the conference to unlock the financing needed to achieve the SDG and provides improved measures and a new web platform to track countries’ support for and engagement with the UN system via its Index of countries’ support for UN-based multilateralism (UN-Mi). The report was written by a group of independent experts at the SDG Transformation Center, an initiative of the SDSN. This year, more than 200,000 individual data points were used to produce 200+ country and regional SDG profiles.
This year’s SDR highlights five key findings:
Kazakhstan’s performance on the SDGs reflects measured progress, with overall index score of 71.5, positioning the country 70th out of 167 globally. This score is marginally below the Eastern Europe and Central Asia regional average of 72.0 but represents a notable improvement of 5.1 points since 2015, indicating a positive trajectory. Kazakhstan demonstrates comparatively strong outcomes in areas such as poverty reduction (SDG 1), access to quality education (SDG 4), and energy (SDG 7), suggesting effective policy implementation in core development sectors. Several goals, including SDG 3 (Good health and well-being), SDG 5 (Gender equality), SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation), and SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth), are marked by stagnation or only moderate improvement, indicating the need for reinforced efforts and structural reforms. With only 1% missing data, Kazakhstan’s SDG reporting remains robust, laying a strong foundation for continued monitoring and evidence-based decision-making. Overall, while Kazakhstan has made measurable progress, especially in poverty alleviation and certain aspects of social development, sustained and targeted policy actions are needed to address lagging goals and ensure more balanced progress across the entire 2030 Agenda.
The Sustainable Development Report 2025 is available at the following link.
This year’s SDR highlights five key findings:
- SDG commitment is high globally. To date, 190 of the 193 UN Member States have participated in the Voluntary National Review (VNR) process, presenting their national plans and priorities for sustainable development. Since 2015, most countries have submitted two or more VNRs, and 39 countries have committed to presenting a VNR this year. Only three countries have not participated: Haiti, Myanmar, and the United States (U.S.). Additionally, a growing number of regional and local governments have developed Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs) to report on SDG implementation at the subnational level.
- European countries continue to lead the SDG Index, while East and South Asian countries outperform other regions in SDG progress. As in previous years, European, specifically Nordic, countries top the SDG Index: Finland (#1), Sweden (#2), and Denmark (#3). Yet, even these countries face challenges in achieving multiple goals and tend to generate large international spillovers, notably due to unsustainable consumption. On average, East and South Asian countries have demonstrated the fastest progress since 2015 (in points): Nepal (+11.1), Cambodia (+10), the Philippines (+8.6), Bangladesh (+8.3), and Mongolia (+7.7). Other countries demonstrating rapid progress among their peers include Benin (+14.5), Peru (+8.7), the United Arab Emirates (+9.9), Uzbekistan (+12.1), Costa Rica (+7), and Saudi Arabia (+8.1). In this year’s SDG Index, China (#49) and India (#99) also make their entry, respectively, in the top 50 and 100 performers.
- At the global level, SDG progress has stalled; none of the 17 Global Goals are on track, and only 17% of the SDG targets are on track to be achieved by 2030. Conflicts, structural vulnerabilities, and limited fiscal space continue to hinder progress, especially in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs). The five targets showing significant reversal in progress since 2015 include: obesity rate (SDG 2), press freedom (SDG 16), sustainable nitrogen management (SDG 2), the red list index (SDG 15), and the corruption perception index (SDG 16). Conversely, many countries have made notable progress in expanding access to basic services and infrastructure, including: mobile broadband use (SDG 9), access to electricity (SDG 7), internet use (SDG 9), under-5 mortality rate (SDG 3), and neonatal mortality (SDG 3). However, future progress on many of these indicators, including health-related outcomes, is threatened by global tensions and the decline in international development finance.
- Barbados leads again in UN-based multilateralism commitment, while the U.S. ranks last. The SDR 2025’s Index of countries’ support to UN-based multilateralism (UN-Mi) ranks countries based on their support for and engagement with the UN system. The top three countries most committed to UN multilateralism are: Barbados (#1), Jamaica (#2), and Trinidad and Tobago (#3). Among G20 nations, Brazil (#25) ranks highest, while Chile (#7) leads among OECD countries. In contrast, the U.S., which recently withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO) and formally declared its opposition to the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda, ranks last (#193) for the second year in a row.
- The Global Financial Architecture (GFA) must be urgently reformed to finance global public goods and achieve sustainable development. Roughly half the world’s population resides in countries that cannot adequately invest in sustainable development due to unsustainable debt burdens and limited access to affordable, long-term capital. Sustainable development is a high-return investment, yet the GFA continues to direct capital toward high-income countries instead of EMDEs, which offer stronger growth prospects and higher returns. Global public goods also remain significantly underfinanced. The upcoming Ff4D offers a critical opportunity for UN Member States to reform this system and ensure that international financing flows at scale to EMDEs to achieve sustainable development.
Kazakhstan’s performance on the SDGs reflects measured progress, with overall index score of 71.5, positioning the country 70th out of 167 globally. This score is marginally below the Eastern Europe and Central Asia regional average of 72.0 but represents a notable improvement of 5.1 points since 2015, indicating a positive trajectory. Kazakhstan demonstrates comparatively strong outcomes in areas such as poverty reduction (SDG 1), access to quality education (SDG 4), and energy (SDG 7), suggesting effective policy implementation in core development sectors. Several goals, including SDG 3 (Good health and well-being), SDG 5 (Gender equality), SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation), and SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth), are marked by stagnation or only moderate improvement, indicating the need for reinforced efforts and structural reforms. With only 1% missing data, Kazakhstan’s SDG reporting remains robust, laying a strong foundation for continued monitoring and evidence-based decision-making. Overall, while Kazakhstan has made measurable progress, especially in poverty alleviation and certain aspects of social development, sustained and targeted policy actions are needed to address lagging goals and ensure more balanced progress across the entire 2030 Agenda.
The Sustainable Development Report 2025 is available at the following link.