SustainableDevelopmentGoalsataCrossroads:What’sNext?

A decade after the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 2025 SDG Report warns that the world is entering a “global development emergency.” This paper examines the trajectory of global development from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the present, arguing that the apparent successes of the MDG era - driven disproportionately by China’s domestic transformation - created expectations that the SDGs were never structurally equipped to meet. The analysis traces the evolution of the SDG narrative from early optimism to the sobering recognition of systemic fragility, shaped by the pandemic, geopolitical fragmentation, technological acceleration, and a disruptive global energy transition. It assesses global progress and regression across health, education, digital access, climate, poverty, and debt, and explores regional dynamics in China, Southeast Asia, and India. The publication highlights the chronic failures of development financing, the widening gap between global commitments and delivery, and the growing centrality of private capital in shaping development outcomes. It includes three short country reports: Indonesia, one of the most populous countries in the world; Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country relying on global development platforms; and Serbia, an EU candidate country where alignment with the 2030 Agenda is often assumed to be more straightforward. Together, the three cases point to uneven outcomes, while also underscoring the continued relevance of the agenda’s existence. The analysis concludes by outlining four plausible scenarios for the post‑2030 global development agenda and argues that the future of global development will depend less on technical solutions than on political imagination and collective will.