The Arab region must accelerate efforts and improve data availability for all 17 Goals to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Assessments of regional progress, as per the current status index metric measure of each indicator that monitors progress/regress made from 2015 to 2030, indicates decent progress on Goals related to SDG 3 on good health and well-being, SDG 4 on quality education, SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy, and SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities. All four SDGs closely reached their projected levels of achievement in 2022.

Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, progress by the Arab region has been slow, especially in SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth which exhibits nearly zero progress. Moreover, there has been a regress in SDG 2 on zero hunger.

This can be attributed to many factors, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing crises and conflicts in the region. It is likely that the Arab region will not achieve all the SDGs by 2030 if no concrete efforts are made.

Figure 1 provides a snapshot of SDG progress towards the 2022 threshold level and the 2030 target, and of the strength of related evidence.

Only 10 of the 17 Goals can be monitored effectively using indicators with quantifiable targets, and 50 per cent of Arab countries have sufficient data available for at least two years as represented by the evidence strength. The remaining Goals cannot be monitored because of insufficient indicators (grey) in the region and as reflected in the weak evidence strength metric bars, and should therefore be interpreted with caution.