Launch of the Regional Report on the 10 years
of SDG implementation in the Asia and the Pacific based
on the APWLD SDG Monitoring Reports from 2016-2024
A decade into the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, governments continue to claim progress, but the reality on the ground tells a different story. Structural barriers remain unchallenged, leaving 89% of targets in Asia and the Pacific off track. Neoliberal economic policies, corporate capture, and militarised governance have deepened inequalities instead of reversing them. Women and marginalised communities continue to face widespread poverty, food insecurity, gender-based violence, and the burden of unpaid care work. Their participation in decision-making remains limited, while policies continue to prioritise corporate profit over peoples’ rights and well-being.
This report, 10 Years of SDGs in Asia and the Pacific: a Feminist Analysis, brings together findings from grassroots women monitoring of the SDGs implementation across the region. It examines why the SDGs are failing and what needs to change.
Governments have failed to deliver on their commitments. The same structures that created inequality before 2015 remain in place, further exacerbated by the climate crisis and post-pandemic economic policies. The report finds that:
- Poverty and food insecurity are worsening. Women, indigenous communities, and informal workers are most affected as wages stagnate, debt rises, and essential goods become more expensive.
- Gender-based violence remains pervasive, with weak protections, growing digital violence, and rising attacks on LGBTIQ+ communities.
- Unpaid care work is increasing, with women bearing the burden of collapsed public services and economic crises, limiting their opportunities for education and employment.
- Public services are underfunded and privatised, making healthcare and education inaccessible while corporations enjoy tax breaks and incentives.
- Climate action is failing, as governments continue to expand fossil fuel projects, disregarding frontline communities that bear the brunt of climate disasters.
- Civil society space is shrinking, with activists, feminist movements, and Indigenous land defenders facing repression, criminalisation, and violence.
The problem isn’t just slow progress, but systemic barriers that governments refuse to confront. Corporate interests continue to dictate policies, prioritising economic growth over human rights and environmental sustainability. Governments are expanding privatisation, militarisation, and authoritarian governance instead of investing in real solutions. The SDGs were meant to transform systems, but without addressing the root causes of inequality: unjust financial, trade and investment agreements, militaristic aggression, heightened corporate power, fundamentalisms and patriarchal governance – real progress will not happen.
Across Asia and the Pacific, feminist and grassroots movements are resisting corporate power and demanding Development Justice, a vision that shifts power, resources, and decision-making back to the people. With just five years left until 2030, governments need to take action that asserts the right to development for all peoples and the planet over profit; a model that upholds peoples’ self-determination over their body, labour, territories and resources; a model that ensure a more just, kinder, more equitable future for all.
Development Justice is not just a demand – it’s the only way forward.
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