The aim of these global goals is "peace and prosperity for people and the planet"[1][2] – while tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests.

The global effort for the SDGs calls for prioritizing environmental sustainability, understanding the indivisible nature of the goals, and seeking synergies across sectors.

For the national context this means a focus on groups that are "suffering from exclusion and inequalities, namely children and the youth, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and migrants and refugees".

For example, the earlier Millennium Development Goal Number 1 aimed to “halve the proportion of people” suffering from hunger or extreme poverty.

In each case, parity indices are looked at to ensure that disadvantaged students do not miss out (data is collected on "female/male, rural/urban, bottom/top wealth quintile and others such as disability status, indigenous peoples"[29]).

"[30] Indicators include, for example, having suitable legal frameworks and the representation by women in national parliament or in local deliberative bodies.

Further examples are rates of youth unemployment and occupational injuries or the number of women engaged in the labor force compared to men.

"[44] Indicators in this goal include for example, the proportion of people who are employed in manufacturing activities, are living in areas covered by a mobile network, or who have access to the internet.

[56] SDG 13 is to: "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by regulating emissions and promoting developments in renewable energy.

[71][31] An inclusive society has "mechanisms to enable diversity and social justice, accommodate the special needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, and facilitate democratic participation".

[75] Developing multi-stakeholder partnerships to facilitate knowledge exchange, expertise, technology, and financial resources is recognized as critical to overall success of the SDGs.

[82] UN agencies which are part of the United Nations Development Group decided to support an independent campaign to communicate the new SDGs to a wider audience.

[103] On 6 July 2017, the SDGs were made more actionable by a UNGA resolution that identifies specific targets for each goal and provides indicators to measure progress.

In 2019 António Guterres (secretary-general of the United Nations) issued a global call for a Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

"[4]: 67 With regards to SDG 13 on climate action, the IPCC sees robust synergies particularly for the SDGs 3 (health), 7 (clean energy), 11 (cities and communities), 12 (responsible consumption and production) and 14 (oceans).

[3][4]: 70 To meet SDG 13 and other SDGs, sustained long-term investment in green innovation is required to: decarbonize the physical capital stock – energy, industry, and transportation infrastructure – and ensure its resilience to a changing future climate; to preserve and enhance natural capital – forests, oceans, and wetlands; and to train people to work in a climate-neutral economy.

The breadth of the SDGs, covering nearly all areas of global governance, is at odds with international organizations that over time have become highly functionally differentiated and that operate through intra-organizational compromises.

[132] Another estimate from 2018 (by the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics, that conducts the World Social Capital Monitor) found that to reach all of the SDGs this would require between US$2.5 and $5.0 trillion per year.

[134] The Rockefeller Foundation asserted in 2017 that "The key to financing and achieving the SDGs lies in mobilizing a greater share of the $200+ trillion in annual private capital investment flows toward development efforts, and philanthropy has a critical role to play in catalyzing this shift.

[144][113] Some studies, however, warn of selective implementation of SDGs and political risks linked to private investments in the context of continued shortage of public funding.

This has been described as follows: "the world's social and natural biophysical systems cannot support the aspirations for universal human well-being embedded in the SDGs.

[31] At the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July 2023, speakers remarked that the pandemic, and multiple worldwide crises such as climate change, threatened decades of progress on the SDGs.

For example, global and domestic inequality only barely made it into the final set of SDGs as SDG 10, and this goal is still poorly supported and often marginalized.

[156] In explanation of the findings, the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics said Biodiversity, Peace and Social Inclusion were "left behind" by quoting the official SDGs motto "Leaving no one behind.

[163] The annual publication, co-produced by Bertelsmann Stiftung and SDSN, includes a ranking and dashboards that show key challenges for each country in terms of implementing the SDGs.

"[165] A commentary in The Economist in 2015 argued that 169 targets for the SDGs is too many, describing them as sprawling, misconceived and a mess compared to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This target highlights the need to move beyond indicators such as GDP and to embrace well-being, happiness, or life satisfaction as key measures.

[164]: 145 Scientists have proposed several ways to address the weaknesses regarding environmental sustainability in the SDGs: There are concerns about the ethical orientation of the SDGs: they remain "underpinned by strong (Western) modernist notions of development: sovereignty of humans over their environment (anthropocentricism), individualism, competition, freedom (rights rather than duties), self-interest, belief in the market leading to collective welfare, private property (protected by legal systems), rewards based on merit, materialism, quantification of value, and instrumentalization of labor.

":[164] 453 A meta-analysis review study in 2022 found that: "There is even emerging evidence that the SDGs might have even adverse effects, by providing a "smokescreen of hectic political activity" that blurs a reality of stagnation, dead ends and business-as-usual.

[179]: 164 The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has collected information to show how awareness about the SDGs among government officers, civil society and others has been created in many African countries.