Participants acknowledged that at the mid-point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we are offtrack. They called on everyone to rally in the second half to achieve the Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, overcoming the setbacks caused by climate change, conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic, and debt.

The UN Secretary-General said this year’s SDG Moment arrived at a moment of “great peril” for our world and encouraged leaders to avoid the temptation of leaving development priorities for a sunnier day. The 90-minute event highlighted a few SDGs as particularly critical to achieving the world's ambitions for a better future, such as climate action (SDG 13) and equality (SDGs 5 and 10).