NEW DELHI, June 24: For the first time, India has secured a place among the top 100 countries in the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) rankings, according to the 10th and latest Sustainable Development Report (SDR) released by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network on Tuesday. India now ranks 99th out of 167 countries on the 2025 SDG Index with a score of 67.
This marks a significant improvement from its previous rankings: 109th in 2024, 112th in 2023, 121st in 2022, 120th in 2021, 117th in 2020, 115th in 2019, 112th in 2018 and 116th in 2017. The SDG Index measures progress on a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 indicates full achievement of all 17 goals and 0 means no progress has been made.
The Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a universal call to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity by 2030, with a commitment to leave no one behind.
Among India’s neighbours, Bhutan ranks 74th with 70.5 points, Nepal ranks 85th with 68.6, Bangladesh stands at 114th with 63.9, and Pakistan is positioned at 140th with 57 points. China ranks 49th with 74.4, while the United States is placed at 44th with a score of 75.2.
The report highlights that East and South Asia have made the fastest progress globally since 2015 due to rapid socioeconomic development. Countries in the region that have shown significant improvement in SDG scores include Nepal, Cambodia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Mongolia.
Despite these advancements, the report warns that SDG progress has stalled globally. Only 17 percent of the targets are projected to be achieved by 2030. The authors attribute this slowdown to conflicts, structural vulnerabilities, and limited fiscal space in many countries. Jeffrey Sachs, the lead author of the report and a renowned economist, noted that these factors are severely impeding development progress.
European nations continue to dominate the top of the SDG Index. Finland holds the first position, followed by Sweden and Denmark in second and third respectively. A total of 19 out of the top 20 countries are in Europe, reflecting the region’s strong performance in sustainable development.
The release of this report comes ahead of the fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), scheduled to take place in Seville, Spain, from June 30 to July 3. The report emphasizes the need to reform the global financial architecture, which it describes as broken. It notes that capital continues to flow more easily to wealthy countries, rather than to emerging and developing economies that have higher growth potential and better returns. The reform of the global financial system will be a central topic at the upcoming conference.
