United Nations, July 8 : With four years to go, only 36 per cent of the assessable targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are on track, with nearly half stalling, and 15 per cent have regressed, according to a UN report.

Since the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted in 2015, sustained investment, sound policies and international cooperation have improved the lives of billions of people worldwide with measurable gains across the SDGs, says The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026, Xinhua news agency reported.

Nearly 1 billion people gained access to safely managed drinking water and 1.2 billion people to safely managed sanitation. New HIV infections fell by 30 per cent between 2015 and 2024, and AIDS-related deaths by 35 per cent. Electricity now reaches 92 per cent of the world's population. Internet access has surged from 40 per cent to 74 per cent. Social protection covers more than half the global population for the first time in history, according to the report.

"Guided by the data in this report, our vision of the 2030 Agenda remains within reach," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in the report. "Together, let us make a decisive final push to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and build a healthy, prosperous future for all."

Despite the progress, major challenges persist, the report shows.

One in 10 people still lives in extreme poverty. Around 2.3 billion people face moderate or severe food insecurity. More than 150 million children remain stunted. Maternal mortality stands at nearly three times the global target. The number of people affected by climate-related disasters has more than doubled since 2015, according to the report.

Escalating conflicts, climate change, slowing economic growth, rising debt, and a record decline in official development assistance are compounding the shortfall and disproportionately affecting the world's most vulnerable people, it added.

At the press conference during which the report was released, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said that the SDGs are sound. "Where they have been backed by political will and resources, they do deliver," she said, warning of the existence of a deepening crisis in the means of implementation.

She called for three commitments: advancing gender equality as an enabler of every goal, accelerating the transition to renewable energy, and putting peace first by investing in the instruments of development rather than ever-rising military spending.

"None of today's defining challenges can be solved by countries acting alone. The evidence presented in this report makes one thing unmistakably clear: the Sustainable Development Goals remain achievable if we choose to act together with greater urgency, scale, solidarity and resolve," said Mohammed. "But that choice must be made now. It must be made with four years to go for a decisive final push to change the trajectory that we are currently on."

UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua said the 2030 Agenda recognizes that sustainable development is a shared endeavor, not a zero-sum game.

Recent milestones, such as legally protecting the high seas, or the surge in renewable electricity-generating capacity in developing countries, prove that ambitious, coordinated action delivers, Li said in the report.

"The next four years will test our momentum. The choices we make now regarding financing, global cooperation and collective crisis management will echo for generations," he said. "The evidence in this report proves the goals we set in 2015 were never beyond us. We must now summon the resolve to finish what we began."

/IANS