Can AI offer the UN SDGs a lifeline?

With the global sustainability agenda critically behind schedule, a new AI-powered platform offers a novel approach to accelerating progress

The ambition set by the United Nations (UN) in 2015 to achieve 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 is, by all accounts, flagging. A mere 17 per cent of SDG targets are on track. Nearly half show minimal or moderate advancement, and over one-third have stalled or even regressed since 2015. A new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform promises to coalesce disparate global efforts into a unified approach towards sustainability.

The sluggish pace can be partially attributed to a pervasive and insidious problem: fragmentation. Global efforts to tackle monumental challenges, from climate change to entrenched inequality, have largely operated in isolation. 

Systemic fragmentation is a fundamental risk to SDG success and is multifactorial: a lack of coordination among stakeholders, siloed approaches and competing priorities that undermine holistic solutions. This can lead to disjointed policymaking, duplication of efforts and missed synergies. The SDGs are deeply interlinked, yet policies often treat them in isolation.

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Fragmentation poses three critical challenges to SDG progress. First, policy incoherence creates unsustainable trade-offs: while synergies exist, for instance, between climate action and clean energy, fragmented approaches often pit goals against one another—such as rapid decarbonisation exacerbating poverty or intensive farming boosting food production while degrading ecosystems. 

Second, economic inefficiencies arise from duplication, where isolated projects—like standalone water initiatives—miss opportunities for integrated, cost-saving approaches like the water-energy-food nexus while competing funding streams dilute impact. 

Third, governance failures perpetuate silos: divided ministerial mandates, like the environment versus the economy, obstruct cross-sectoral solutions and fragmented data systems hinder adaptive policymaking. 

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