Member states of the United Nations (UN) are racing to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with the deadline only five years away.

A 2024 progress report on the SDG implementation by the UN reveals that only about 15 percent of the targets are on track to be met by 2030, with nearly half moderately or severely off track.

Over a third of the SDGs have seen no progress or have regressed, particularly in poverty reduction, hunger and climate action due to conflicts and wars, weather disasters, economic inequality and the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the report.

There is momentum, however, on the adoption of renewable energy, digital education, health innovations. The report also cited local initiatives and city-level SDG programs, including from the Philippines, as promising.

“None of the SDGs are secured for 2030,” admitted UN resident coordinator Arnaud Peral in a media briefing last 10 October.

“Some are kind of off track, some indicators are on track. More than 17 percent of them globally. But we see some of them going backwards and not going forward. And in the Philippines, it’s the same challenges. We see some progress in some of them, but some of them going not that well or going backwards also. So we need to accelerate,” Peral added.

The country remains focused and hopeful in achieving the SDGs. In fact, several cities are tracking the progress by doing their Voluntary Local Review Report (VLRR).

Baguio, Santa Rosa, Surigao, Makati and Cawayan (Isabela) have been supported by the UN in developing VLRR, said UN-Habitat country program manager Christopher Rollo. 

The VLRR serves as a tool for assessing development efforts, identifying challenges and refining policies to support inclusive growth and resilience. Surigao City is the only city in Mindanao actively conducting a VLRR while it continues to integrate data-driven strategies into its governance.

Surigao del Norte, which also adopted the VLRR, is expected to be the first province reporting on its SDG implementation, according to Rollo.

There is also a voluntary national review for tracking SDG implementation nationwide but not all cities have reports, he said.