How should countries set realistic and ambitious development targets? Daniel Gerszon MahlerNishant YonzanDivyanshi WadhwaUmar SerajuddinRossana Tatulli May 14, 2026 This page in: English © 2026 The World Bank Group,

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/how-should-countries-set-realistic-and-ambitious-development-tar It is now widely acknowledged that the world will not meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The UN’s own assessment finds that only a third of SDG targets are on track or making moderate progress, while nearly half are moving too slowly and a fifth are reversing. This shortfall partly reflects the world’s slow pace of development since the SDGs were set, a trend exacerbated by global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and geopolitical instability. But it is also a reflection of the SDG targets themselves, some of which were deliberately set as highly aspirational. Even with fast progress, they would have been nearly impossible to achieve by 2030. Goals like ending poverty or achieving universal access to clean water are nearly impossible to achieve in less than a generation because many countries are more than a hundred years away from these goals at a normal pace of development. © 2026 The World Bank Group,