Greece ranks 29th out of 167 OECD countries globally for its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) performance, according to the recently-released 2024 Sustainable Development Report by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

At the start of 2024, SDSN noted in a 2023/2024 report that Greece ranks towards the bottom of the list of EU countries, which is aligned with this more recent global report, which also shows that the only countries achieving the target score of 80% or more are from Europe.

How Greece Performs

Greece is nearing the 80% threshold with an overall score of 78.7%, which is just ahead of the regional average of 77.2%.

However, the report also shows that Greece has not achieved any of the SDGs and faces major or significant challenges in achieving 64% of them.

The country performs the best regarding SDG 1 on “No Poverty”, while the future appears most ominous for SDG 12 on “Responsible Consumption and Production”, which is considered to be a major challenge where progress is decreasing.

Gobal Trends

This year’s report highlights 5 global trends as follows:

  1. Only 16% of SDG targets are on track to be met globally by 2030 with 84% showing limited or a reversal of progress.
  2. Nordic countries continue to lead on progress, followed by BRICS countries, with poor and vulnerable nations lagging.
  3. Financial architecture around SDGs remains insufficient and needs to be reformed
  4. Global cooperation remains a challenge, with Barbados ranking the highest in its commitment to multilateralism and the United States in last place.
  5. SDG targets related to food and land systems are far off track and need an immediate course correction.

About the Report

The Sustainable Development Report (SDR) reviews progress made each year on the SDGs since their adoption by the 193 UN member states in 2015, and this year’s has a special focus on the “UN Summit of the Future” and SDG17 on Global Partnerships.

The report was prepared by the SDSN’s SDG Transformation Center and coordinated by Guillaume Lafortune in cooperation with Jeffrey D. Sachs.