Four years into the 2030 Agenda and there is a pressing need to understand where the world stands in eradicating hunger and food insecurity, as well as ensuring sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.  Coinciding with July’s High-level Political Forum, which is at a critical milestone in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda, FAO has launched its first digital report on food and agriculture-related SDG targets.

The most recent evidence available for such targets paints a grim picture. The world is not on track to meet the majority of SDG targets related to sustainable agriculture and food security. This conclusion is accentuated by the recent uptick in hunger in the world [SOFI link] and the continued degradation of the natural resource base.

Until recently, providing a comprehensive picture of progress towards these objectives would have been difficult, given that many relevant SDG indicators were new and the data insufficient. As of July 2019 however, FAO is able to report data for 17 out of the 21 SDG indicators it is responsible for, plus one for which it is a partner agency.

This has been made possible through FAO’s work in securing the establishment of new indicator methodologies at an international level and by a steady increase in the number of reporting countries. To this end, FAO has deployed a wide spectrum of capacity development initiatives since 2016, including global and regional training workshops, country-level technical assistance missions, and the development of SDG indicator e-learning courses.

Despite what the overall figures may suggest however, data gaps for many indicators are still vast in terms of country coverage, time series data, and disaggregation dimensions, limiting their ability to guide policy and investment decisions effectively. To tackle these gaps, FAO has recently unveiled a multi-donor programme to accelerate support to countries in the collection, production, dissemination, and use of all 21 indicators under its custodianship [link].