Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): What Are the UN's 17 Goals for 2030

The name shows up everywhere, from UN documents to the colorful wheel of icons printed on reports and campaigns, but behind “SDGs” sits a precise document: the plan the UN General Assembly put into writing on 25 September 2015, at a summit in New York marking the Organization’s seventieth anniversary. 193 member states signed it, Italy among them.

The resolution that carries it, A/RES/70/1, frames it as a plan for people, the planet and prosperity, with the stated ambition of also strengthening universal peace. It is the instrument the UN used to turn the idea of sustainability into something operational: a deadline, plus a numbered list of goals. The general definition of that concept stays in the other Recap.

It is not an international treaty: it is a resolution, a political act by member governments.

The scaffolding looks like this: 17 Sustainable Development Goals, broken down into 169 more specific Targets. According to ASviS, the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development founded on 3 February 2016, more than 240 indicators track them, with every country assessed periodically at the UN.

Short goal titles circulate outside the UN’s own text too, and they vary by country. In Italy, ASviS popularized versions like “Sconfiggere la povertà” (No Poverty) or “Lotta contro il cambiamento climatico” (climate action); the full text of each Goal stays in English on the official site, sdgs.un.org.

Goal	Short title	What it calls for
1	No Poverty	Ending poverty in all its forms, everywhere
2	Zero Hunger	Ending hunger and making agriculture sustainable
3	Good Health and Well-being	Ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all, at every age
4	Quality Education	Inclusive, equitable education and learning for all
5	Gender Equality	Equality and empowerment for women and girls
6	Clean Water and Sanitation	Sustainable management of water and sanitation
7	Affordable and Clean Energy	Affordable, reliable, sustainable energy for all
8	Decent Work and Economic Growth	Inclusive growth, full employment, decent work
9	Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure	Resilient infrastructure and sustainable innovation
10	Reduced Inequalities	Less inequality between and within countries
11	Sustainable Cities and Communities	Inclusive, safe, resilient cities
12	Responsible Consumption and Production	Sustainable patterns of consumption and production
13	Climate Action	Urgent action against climate change and its impacts
14	Life Below Water	Sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources
15	Life on Land	Protecting ecosystems, forests and biodiversity
16	Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions	Peaceful societies, accessible justice, effective institutions
17	Partnerships for the Goals	Strengthening global cooperation for sustainable development

Practical example: a school that runs a beach cleanup and ties it to Goal 14 (“Life Below Water”) is applying the 2030 Agenda at the local level: a global goal set in 2015 becomes a concrete project, measurable with something as simple as the kilos of plastic collected.

Behind the 17 short titles sit areas that differ widely from one another. Goal 1 and Goal 10 approach the same question from two sides: the first calls for ending poverty in all its forms, the second for reducing inequality between and within countries. That distinction explains part of what shows up in rankings of the poorest countries in the world: low average income and sharp internal inequality often sit in the same territory, with different consequences for absolute and relative poverty. A country can have a high average income and, at the same time, deep pockets of poverty within it, precisely because Goal 1 and Goal 10 measure different things: the first the lack of minimum resources, the second the gap between those who have more and those who have less.

Goal 13 calls for urgent action against climate change. Among the consequences the Agenda does not spell out one by one is the forced displacement that the climate crisis is making more frequent, a subject covered in the Recap on climate refugees.

Goal 16, finally, calls for peaceful societies, access to justice and effective institutions: ground that overlaps with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1948 UN document that laid the groundwork for many of the rights Goal 16 asks institutions to protect.

The deadline year, 2030, gives the plan its common name, set in 2015 by 193 governments.