Abstract
Adopted in 2015 with a 2030 horizon, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established a universal, voluntary and indicator-driven framework for coordinated global action. Since 2019, however, a sequence of shocks the pandemic, energy and food crises, sovereign-debt distress and deepening geopolitical fragmentation has tested whether this form of soft governance can protect progress in a crisis. This study evaluates SDG effectiveness as shock resilience rather than as proximity to the 2030 targets. Using a balanced panel of 166 countries observed annually from 2019 to 2025 (1,162 country-year observations), it combines the SDG Index with the Geopolitical Risk (GPR) Index, armed-conflict intensity, supply-chain and growth-volatility indicators, governance indicators, and financing flows. The empirical strategy comprises two-way fixed-effects regression with country-clustered standard errors and an event-study design around the shock years 2020 and 2022. The results indicate that (a) global average SDG Index scores have plateaued at roughly 66–67 since 2019, after rising in 2015–2019; (b) higher geopolitical risk is associated with slower annual SDG (c) the association is stronger in fragile and conflict-affected states; and (d) it is weaker where governance quality and financing are stronger. The findings suggest that the SDG architecture functions as a coordination and accountability mechanism in stable periods, but carries much of the responsibility for safeguarding progress in a crisis without the enforcement or financial instruments to do so. Limitations include the status of the estimates, the associational (not strictly causal) design, the composite nature of the SDG Index, and an unusually shock-prone sample window. The study proposes adaptive, polycentric and shock-resilient design principles for sustainability governance beyond 2030.
Keywords
- Sustainable development goals
- Sustainability governance
- Geopolitical risk
- Systemic disruption
- Shock resilience
- Panel data analysis
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Gupta, P. (2026). Assessing the effectiveness of UN SDGs amid geopolitical volatility: A panel study of 166 countries, 2019–2025. Eurasian Journal of Education and Psychology, 2(1), 137-148. https://doi.org/10.68283/ejep.v2.i1.a11