What would achieving the goals by 2030 actually mean?

193 world leaders are committing to 17 Global Goals in order to achieve 3 extraordinary things in the next 15 years. End extreme poverty. Fight inequality & injustice. Fix climate change. The Global Goals for sustainable development could get these things done. In all countries. For all people.

Here, we take a closer look at what each completed goal would achieve.

Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

• Eradicate extreme poverty (people living on less than $1.25 a day).
• Reduce at least by half the proportion of people living in poverty in all its dimensions.
• Implement social protection systems and measures for all, and achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable. 
• Ensure that all men and women have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership, and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services. 
• Build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations, and reduce their exposure to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters.

Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

• End hunger and ensure access by all people to safe and nutritious food all year round. 
• End all forms of malnutrition and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, and older persons. 
• Double the agricultural productivity and the incomes of small farmers, respecting the environment and the biodiversity of each region.

• Prevent problems such as drought, floods and other disasters.

• Protect the variety of species of seeds, crops and farm animals and fairly distribute the benefits of these resources.

• Increase investment in rural infrastructure, agricultural research, technology development, and plant and livestock gene banks to improve agricultural productive capacity in developing countries.

• Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets.

• Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives to help limit extreme food price volatility.

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

• Reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births.

• End preventable deaths of newborns and children under five years old.

• End the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases, and other communicable diseases.

• Reduce by one-third pre-mature mortality from non-communicable diseases.

• Strengthen prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.

• By 2020 halve global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents.

• Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes.

Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning

• Ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education.

• Ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education.

• Ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.

• Increase by x% the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment and entrepreneurship.

• Eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and children in vulnerable situations.

• Ensure that all youth and at least x% of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.

• Ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity.

• Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, inclusive and effective learning environments for all.

• By 2020 expand by x% globally the number of scholarships for developing countries

• Increase by x% the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries.

Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

• End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.

• Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual exploitation.

• Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations.

• Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies.

• Ensure women’s effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life.

• Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.

• Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources.

• Enhance the use of enabling technologies, in particular information communication technologies (ICTs), to promote women’s empowerment.

• Adopt and strengthen policies and legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.

Goal 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all

• Achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.

• Achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation.

• Improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials.

• Substantially increase water-use efficiency and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity.

• Protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes.

• Expand international cooperation and support to developing countries in water and sanitation related activities, including water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies.

• Support and strengthen the participation of local communities for improving water and sanitation management.

Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

• Ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services.

• Increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030.

• Double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.

• Enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technologies, including renewable energy, energy efficiency, and advanced and cleaner fossil fuel technologies, and promote investment in energy infrastructure and clean energy technologies.

• Expand infrastructure and upgrade technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all in developing countries, particularly for least developed countries and small island developing states.

Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all

• Sustain per capita economic growth in accordance with national circumstances, and at least 7 per cent annual GDP growth in least-developed countries.

• Achieve higher levels of productivity of economies through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation.

• Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises including through access to financial services.

• Improve global resource efficiency in consumption and production, and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation with developed countries taking the lead.

• Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men and equal pay for work of equal value.

• By 2020 substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training.

• Take immediate measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of child labour, eradicate forced labour, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms including recruitment and use of child soldiers.

• Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments of all workers, including migrant workers.

• Devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism which creates jobs, promotes local culture and products.

• Strengthen the capacity of domestic financial institutions to encourage and expand access to banking, insurance and financial services for all.

• Increase Aid for Trade support for developing countries, including through the Enhanced Integrated Framework for Least Developed Countries.

• By 2020 develop and operationalize a global strategy for youth employment.

Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

• Develop sustainable and resilient infrastructure to support economic development and human well-being.

• Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and raise significantly the industry’s share of employment and GDP in line with national circumstances, and double its share in least developed countries.

• Increase the access of small-scale industrial and other enterprises to financial services including affordable credit and their integration into value chains and markets.

• Upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes.

• Enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, including by encouraging innovation and increasing the number of R&D workers per one million people by x% and public and private R&D spending.

• Facilitate sustainable and resilient infrastructure development in developing countries.

• Support domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries.

• Significantly increase access to ICT and strive to provide universal and affordable access to internet in least developed countries by 2020.

Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

• Achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.

• Empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.

• Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including through eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and actions in this regard.

• Adopt fiscal, wage, and social protection policies to progressively achieve greater equality.

• Improve regulation and monitoring of global financial markets and institutions and strengthen implementation of such regulations.

• Ensure enhanced representation of developing countries in decision making in global international economic and financial institutions to deliver more effective, credible, accountable and legitimate institutions.

• Facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people.

• Implement the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, in accordance with WTO agreements.

• Encourage Official Development Assistance and financial flows to states where the need is greatest.

• Reduce to less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 per cent.

Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

• Ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services, and upgrade slums.

• Provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems, improving road safety.

• Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage.

• Significantly reduce the number of deaths, number of people affected and economic losses caused by disasters.

• Reduce the adverse environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and waste management.

• Provide universal access to green and public spaces, particularly for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities.

• Support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas.

• By 2020, increase by x% the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing policies towards resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change and resilience to disasters.

• Support least developed countries, including through financial and technical assistance, for resilient buildings utilizing local materials.

Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

• Achieve sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.

• Halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reduce food losses along production and supply chains.

• By 2020 achieve environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle.

• Substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling, and reuse.

• Encourage companies, especially large and trans-national companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle.

• Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable in accordance with national policies.

• Ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles.

• Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacities to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production.

• Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism.

• Rationalize inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption by removing market distortions, to reflect their environmental impacts.

Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

• Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.

• Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning.

• Improve education, awareness raising and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning.

• Implement the commitment undertaken by developed country Parties to the UNFCCC to a goal of mobilizing jointly US $100 billion annually to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions.

• Promote mechanisms for raising capacities for effective climate change related planning and management, in least developed countries, including focusing on women, youth, local and marginalized communities.

Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources

• By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds.

• By 2020, sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration.

• Minimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels.

• By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting, and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible.

• By 2020, conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law.

• By 2020, prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing and refrain from introducing new such subsidies.

• Increase the economic benefits to small island developing states and least developed countries from the sustainable use of marine resources.

• Increase scientific knowledge, develop research capacities and transfer marine technology to improve ocean health.

• Provide access of small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets.

Goal 15: Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss

• By 2020 ensure conservation, restoration and sustainable use of forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.

• By 2020, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests, and increase afforestation and reforestation by x% globally.

• By 2020, combat desertification, and restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by drought and floods.

• Ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, to enhance their capacity to provide benefits which are essential for sustainable development.

• Take urgent action to halt the loss of biodiversity, and by 2020 protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species.

• Ensure fair sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources, and promote appropriate access to genetic resources.

• Take urgent action to end poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna.

• By 2020 introduce measures to prevent the introduction of invasive alien species on land and water ecosystems.

• By 2020, integrate biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes and poverty reduction strategies.

• Mobilize and significantly increase financial resources to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and ecosystems.

• Enhance global support to efforts to combat poaching and trafficking of protected species, including by increasing the capacity of local communities to pursue sustainable livelihood opportunities.

Goal 16: Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies

• Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.

• End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence and torture against children.

• Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels, and ensure equal access to justice for all.

• Significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen recovery and return of stolen assets, and combat all forms of organized crime.

• Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all its forms.

• Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels.

• Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels.

• Broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance.

• Provide legal identity for all including birth registration.

• Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.

• Strengthen relevant national institutions, in particular in developing countries, for preventing violence and combating terrorism and crime.

• Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development.

Goal 17: Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Finance

• Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection.

• Developed countries to implement fully their official development assistance (ODA) commitments, including to provide 0.7% of GNI in ODA to developing countries.

• Mobilize additional financial resources for developing countries from multiple sources.

• Assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability through policies aimed at debt relief and debt restructuring.

Technology

• Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation.

• Promote development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms.

Capacity building

• Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all sustainable development goals.

• Promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization.

• Increase the exports of developing countries, with a view to doubling the least developed countries share of global exports by 2020.

Systemic issues

• Enhance global macroeconomic stability including through policy coordination and policy coherence.

• Respect each country’s policy space and leadership to establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships

• Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technologies and financial resources.

• Encourage and promote effective public, public-private, and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships.

Data, monitoring and accountability

• Enhance capacity building support to developing countries to increase the availability of reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts.

• Build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement GDP, and support statistical capacity building in developing countries.