With the world continuing to grapple with the post-COVID-19 recovery, the economic and political tension sparked by the war in Ukraine, as well as an ever-worsening climate crisis, thousands of delegates from across the world are gathering in New York in the United States to advance key talks and navigate the current precarious geopolitical landscape.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit on Monday and Tuesday has so far been dubbed the most important event of the 78th UNGA, where world delegates will discuss the lack of collective progress in advancing the 17 SDGs previously set to be achieved by 2030.

The SDGs include inclusive and sustainable industrialization, climate action, as well as strengthening the global multilateralism mechanism, among other issues. Yet in April, a UN report said that only 12 percent of the 140 assessed SDGs targets were on track, while the majority of the action plan reflected "weak and insufficient" progress.

The UN recently stated that the failure to reach SDG targets before the set time may exacerbate political instability and enable irreversible damage to the environment.

In an address at the SDGs Summit on Monday, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi lamented the state of the global order, emphasizing that developing countries must be allowed to develop without “discrimination” and that the “Global South must have the opportunity to develop downstream industries.”

Ahead of the SDGs Summit, the Foreign Ministry told reporters that Indonesia has been performing well at achieving its goals. Citing 2021 National Development and Planning Ministry (Bappenas) data, he said that only 48 out of the 222 SDG indicators showed a need for improvement.