The Sustainable Development Report 2022 marks the seventh edition of the annual assessment of progress of all UN Member States towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This year's report discusses the critical need and channels of development finance for low-income and lower-middle income countries.

The Sustainable Development Report 2022 features the SDG Index and Dashboards, the first and widely used tool to assess country performance on the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. In a context of multiple crises, the report analyzes and outlines how the SDGs can be used as a roadmap for more sustainable societies by 2030 and beyond. In particular, this year’s edition underlines the importance of international financing mechanisms for addressing lack of fiscal space in poorer countries and promoting sustainable investments into physical and human infrastructure.

The authors examine country performance on the SDGs for 193 countries using a wide array of indicators, and calculate
future trajectories, presenting a number of best practices to achieve the historic Agenda 2030.

The views expressed in this report do not reflect the views of any organization, agency or program of the United Nations. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The interactive maps showcase the performance of countries on each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Visualize countries' current performance or visualize trends to see which countries are on track. Dig into each of the 120 indicators covered in the Sustainable Development Report 2022.

A global plan to finance the SDGs is needed. Achieving the SDGs is fundamentally an investment agenda in physical
infrastructure (including renewable energy) and human capital. Yet the poorest half of the world – roughly speaking, the low-income countries (LICs) and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) – lacks market access to capital on acceptable terms. We highlight five priorities towards a global plan to finance the SDGs.

First, the G20 should declare clearly and unequivocally its commitment to channel far larger flows of financing to developing countries so that they can achieve economic development and meet the SDG targets.

Second, the G20 should greatly increase the lending capacity and annual flows of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), mainly through greater paid-in capital to these institutions, but also through greater leverage of their balance sheets.

Third, the G20 should support other measures as well – notably increased ODA, large-scale philanthropy, and refinancing of debts falling due – to bolster SDG finance for the LICs and LMICs.

Fourth, the IMF and the credit-rating agencies need to redesign the assessments of debt sustainability, taking into account the growth potential of developing countries and their need for far larger capital accumulation.

Fifth, working together with the IMF and the MDBs, developing countries need to strengthen their debt management and creditworthiness by integrating their borrowing policies with tax policies, export policies, and liquidity management, all to prevent future liquidity crises.

At mid-point on the way to 2030, policy efforts and commitments supporting the SDGs vary significantly across countries, including among G20 countries.