EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Brussels, 15.5.2023

SWD(2023) 700 final

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT

Progress in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals

Accompanying the document

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

EU Voluntary Review on progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

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Contents

Introduction    

SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere     

SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture    

SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages    

SDG 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all    

SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls    

SDG 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all    

SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all    

SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all    

SDG 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation    

SDG 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries    

SDG 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable    

SDG 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns    

SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts    

SDG 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development    

SDG 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss    

SDG 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels    

SDG 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development    

Introduction

This annex accompanies the EU Voluntary Review (EUVR) and is organised around 17 chapters providing a qualitative assessment of the progress made on achieving each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the policy and enabling environment as well as the most important means of implementing the SDGs at EU level. The EUVR is further supplemented by: i) a statistical and analytical annex, which presents quantitative information on relevant SDG indicators, synergies, trade-offs and interlinkages, ii) an annex highlighting the essential role of youth engagement in delivering the UN 2030 for Sustainable Development (‘the 2030 Agenda’ ), and iii) an annex dedicated to the stakeholder consultation activities and the views of civil society.

This structure, inspired by the voluntary common reporting guidelines for voluntary national reviews (VNRs), is used to present the relevant information in an organised manner. It also makes for an accessible and transparent structure to present the strategic framework laid down in the EUVR, consisting of leading EU targets and commitments for each SDG.

The EU’s goal of accelerating its twin green and digital transitions, as well as implementing the SDGs through its recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, is reflected across this EUVR. The EU is fully committed to becoming greener, more digital, more socially just, more inclusive and more resilient. The EU is fully committed to a human rights based approach in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

SDG integration in the EU policy framework

Together with partners across the world and a broad range of stakeholders, the EU played an active part in shaping the universal 2030 Agenda, which is fully consistent with EU values and policy objectives.

The Commission followed up on the adoption of the 2030 Agenda with a forward-looking approach outlined in the 2016 Communication: ‘Next steps for a sustainable European future: European Union action for sustainability’ 1 . This entailed assessing the state of play, identifying the most relevant sustainability concerns, and triggering the active integration of the SDGs in the European policy framework.

In 2019, the Commission adopted a reflection paper – ‘ Towards a sustainable Europe by 2030 ’ – as part of the reflection process on the future of Europe. The reflection paper took stock of the main SDG-related EU internal and external initiatives, laid out an overview of the progress carried out since the 2030 Agenda was adopted, including the outcome of the reflections of a high-level multi-stakeholder platform, and presented scenarios for the future. The reflection paper also informed President Ursula von der Leyen’s political guidelines for 2019-2024.

The current ‘whole of government’ approach, placing the SDGs at the core of EU policy, legislation and funding, was detailed in the 2020 staff working document ‘Delivering on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – A comprehensive approach’ 2 . The key strands of this approach are: designing and effectively applying deeply transformative policies; coordination of economic policies through the European Semester; the multiannual financial framework and the recovery instrument NextGenerationEU; mainstreaming the SDGs in policymaking using better regulation tools; ensuring policy coherence for sustainable development; EU engagement in the world; monitoring and reporting; and engagement of civil society, the private sector and other stakeholders.

The preparation of the EU’s first-ever Voluntary Review

Sustainable development requires a comprehensive and cross-sectoral policy approach and is ultimately an issue of governance, which needs to be pursued in partnership with all stakeholders at all levels.

The EUVR was prepared across several phases.

·Planning, collecting information, and engaging with stakeholders (February 2022 – December 2022). The coordination team liaised with the UN and engaged with stakeholders through various complementary work strands, which allowed for broad and transparent consultation during the drafting period (detailed in the synopsis report). Essential inputs in the preparation included the regular exchanges with Member States (including a questionnaire on SDG implementation) and other EU institutions, the views of civil society and the feedback received from the public through the ‘call for evidence’.

·Compiling and finalising the review (December 2022 – April 2023). All the draft elements of the Voluntary Review were brought together, made coherent and progressively streamlined, in parallel with continued dialogue with Member States and engagement with stakeholders.

Importance of addressing interlinkages between the SDGs in EU policymaking

In 2015, the global community agreed that the SDGs are universal, integrated and indivisible. The SDGs are interdependent by design, particularly through a complex network of interlinkages. These interconnections can be positive, negative, or of a mixed nature, and can occur at different geographical and temporal scales with different impacts. Given their interdependent nature, the 17 SDGs are best implemented in a comprehensive manner – all simultaneously – and this is precisely what the EU is aiming for with its whole-of-government approach.

The EU pays particular attention to such interlinkages and integrated actions that can create mutual benefits and meet multiple objectives in a coherent way. It is actively assessing synergies and trade-offs as it progresses towards sustainable development in an integrated manner, balancing the economic, social and environmental dimensions. This is also a central requirement to fulfilling the commitment to ensure policy coherence for sustainable development.

This annex contains specific examples of how these SDG interlinkages are addressed at EU level. In fact, several EU targets and commitments, as well as related Eurostat indicators, are often relevant to several SDGs, although in this review they are mentioned in only one chapter for practical reasons. The statistical and analytical annex also contains illustrations of how the EU addresses SDG interlinkages in its policymaking and in the context of international partnerships.

Internal and external implementation, including policy coherence and spillover effects

Given the universality of SDGs and because the 2030 Agenda should be implemented globally, the EU is committed to implementing the SDGs internally and at the same time supporting its partner countries in their own efforts to advance the 2030 Agenda. As such, each of the following SDG-specific chapters is organised around these two complementary internal and external dimensions.

The EU pays particular attention to ensuring that the internal and external dimensions of the SDGs are consistently addressed as two sides of the same coin. This EUVR therefore includes sections on ‘internal/external coherence and policy coherence for development’ at the beginning of the external section of each SDG chapter.

These sections address, among other things, the external aspects of EU policies, as a continuum with the internal section of each chapter, and then addresses the impacts on partner countries where relevant. In this manner, the EUVR integrates the reporting on policy coherence for development, having regard to the EU Treaties (Art. 208 TFEU). As stated in the Better Regulation toolbox, ‘as part of the EU’s commitment to ensure SDG implementation internally and externally, the assessment of potential impacts of internal EU policies and initiatives on partner countries is crucial. It must be applied in a manner that integrates the SDGs, given that they are a shared universal framework.” Since policy coherence for development relates to the external impacts of internal policies, the EUVR is a vehicle to presenting this orientation in a clear and consistent manner.

Main elements on the internal implementation in each SDG chapter

The beginning of each of the sections on internal implementation aims to provide an honest overview of the state of progress across each SDG as well as the challenges. In some cases, progress towards achieving a specific SDG was not sufficient prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The accompanying impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, and the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have in many cases further hampered the level of progress. The pursuit of the SDGs remains challenging, but it is more important than ever to redouble efforts and ensure a sustainable and long-lasting recovery, which accelerates the green and digital transitions.

Central to each of the chapters is a strategic framework laying down the main targets and commitments set by EU policies that contribute directly to the progress made towards achieving each SDG. The selection of EU targets is based on a thorough screening of meaningful policy commitments, which are most often time-bound and accompanied by measurable elements, including indicators from the Eurostat annual monitoring report on SDGs. In this manner, the EUVR takes into account the views of those stakeholders who called for an integrated presentation of EU SDG targets in the EUVR. Additional information on the progress made on Eurostat indicators is found in the statistical and analytical annex.

The internal section of each SDG chapter then lays out the key initiatives, key enablers for implementing the SDGs within the EU (related to the UN Global Sustainable Development Report, including financial instruments and resources and leading research programmes), as well as main strands of stakeholder engagement relevant to each SDG, and illustrative examples of multi-level governance to stress the critical role EU Member States, cities and regions play in implementing the SDGs. The ‘ SDG mapper’ tool (see statistical annex) provides useful complementary information for mapping EU policies Further information can be found on the relevant Commission websites. Besides, more information on action at national, regional and local levels is available directly from the VNRs of EU Member States and the voluntary local reviews of European regions and cities.

Main elements on external action in support of the SDGs

The EU and its Member States are determined to support the SDGs at global level. Each SDG chapter contains a part with a range of relevant details on the EU’s external action. After a brief overview of global trends and after addressing the issue of internal/external coherence, each external section then describes the main orientations of EU external engagement, support provided to partner countries to implement the SDGs across our international partnerships, neighbourhood and enlargement policies, and humanitarian action.

This EUVR integrates the commitment to report every 4 years on the implementation of the 2017 European Consensus on Development to show EU support to partner countries in their efforts to progress in achieving the SDGs. In several chapters, the external sections focus on the deployment of the Global Gateway strategy as a concrete vehicle for supporting the implementation of SDGs globally. It shows a range of EU actions that were carried out at regional and country level, including actions with Member States acting as Team Europe.

In terms of EU financial support for implementing the SDGs outside the EU, the section contains several strands of complementary information. It first highlights the support provided by EU institutions per SDG, as reported to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This contains some general messages on the interlinkages between SDGs in the design and reporting of EU actions, as shown graphically in the statistical and analytical annex. The EUVR also contains complementary information of the collective action of the EU and those Member States who report on the SDGs. Coordination is being stepped up with EU Member States, within the overall SDG reporting to OECD, to further improve the consistency in the way SDGs are reported.

For some specific SDGs, such as on climate change, biodiversity and gender equality, the respective chapters also contain statistical information from the reporting under existing OECD markers related to these cross-cutting policy issues. The preparation of the EUVR has shown there is scope to improve consistency between SDG reporting and the reporting under such specific markers, to be further addressed as part of the follow-up.

Looking ahead

As a whole, not only does the EU’s Voluntary Review take stock of the progress made towards achieving each of the SDGs by laying out the main contributing policies and actions, but it also contains forward-looking elements. This EUVR lays out a number of EU initiatives that can contribute to advancing the achievement of the SDGs, which have yet to be launched. These initiatives, some of which are stemming from the Conference of the Future of Europe and the latest Commission work programme, are indicated in the relevant SDG chapters.

On external actions, this EUVR also highlights some of the expected work ahead, based on programming and the deployment of the Global Gateway strategy in support of the SDGs. This annex complements the forward-looking elements laid out in the main report, thereby putting together a range of actions that are planned to be carried out as a follow-up.

At the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the EU looks forward to exchanging best practices, as well as renewing our commitments to working among partners for mutual benefits as we advance together the 2030 Agenda. 

SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere  

EU internal action 

Overview and challenges 

Poverty harms people’s lives and hampers social inclusion, cohesion and well-being. Without effective educational, health, labour market and social protection systems, the risk of poverty is handed down from one generation to the next. This in turn leads to productivity losses and hampers inclusive and sustainable growth. To deliver on SDG 1 in an EU context, it is therefore necessary to tackle the multiple dimensions of poverty and social exclusion, such as income poverty, social deprivation and participation in the labour market, and to ensure that basic housing needs are met, while prioritizing the most vulnerable, as pledged in the leave no one behind promise.

Progress towards reducing poverty and social exclusion (SDG 1) in the EU has been significant. Between 2015 and 2020, fewer people have been affected by income poverty, suffered from severe material and social deprivation, or lived in (partly) jobless households. Poverty and inequality also remained fairly stable despite the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, an outcome linked to exceptional public intervention.

Challenges nonetheless remain in relation to further alleviating poverty, especially as regards the number of children who live in poor households. In addition, the recent energy and food price rises, further aggravated by the war in Ukraine, hit the poorest households the hardest as they spend a higher share of their disposable income on basic goods such as energy and food.

2030 targets and trends at EU level 

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 1 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs. 

Key initiatives

Addressing multidimensional poverty and basic needs is among the main priorities of the  European Pillar of Social Rights and its Action Plan . The plan turns the 20 Pillar principles into concrete actions to benefit citizens. It also proposes headline targets on employment, skills and poverty reduction for the EU to reach by 2030, a commitment confirmed at the Porto Social Summit of May 2021. The revised social scoreboard is the key tool to monitor progress towards its implementation. Delivering the European Pillar of Social Rights is a shared responsibility for the EU institutions, national, regional and local authorities, social partners, and civil society. 

Breaking the intergenerational cycles of disadvantage starts with investing in children to reduce the gap between children in need and their better-off peers. Adopted in 2021, the European  Child Guarantee  helps to ensure that, in the EU, every child in need has equal access to early childhood education and care, education, healthcare, housing and nutrition.  

The Directive on adequate minimum wages , adopted in October 2022, aims at tackling in-work poverty, ensuring fair competition, stimulating productivity improvements, and promoting economic and social progress. 

The Council Recommendation on access to social protection stresses the right to adequate social protection, regardless of the type and duration of their employment relationship, for workers and, under comparable conditions, the self-employed. 

To also address poverty risks for people outside the labour market or in transition, the Council Recommendation on adequate minimum income  calls on Member States to gradually bring income support to the level of national poverty thresholds and provides guidance on how to improve the coverage and take-up of these programmes. 

The EU is also actively involved in ensuring a fair transition towards climate neutrality . In this respect, in June 2022, the Council agreed on a Recommendation on ensuring a fair transition towards climate neutrality . This provides guidance to all EU countries on how to address relevant employment and social aspects of the green transition. 

The report of the high-level group on the future of social protection and of the welfare state in the EU develops a vision over the years to 2030 on how to improve social protection systems and the welfare state in the midst of ongoing and new changes.

The Commission also presented the affordable housing initiative in October 2020 as part of its renovation wave strategy for Europe; this aims to improve the energy consumption of buildings and to create green jobs.

The social economy action plan, adopted in December 2021, seeks to enhance social innovation, support the development of the social economy and boost its social and economic transformative power, including poverty reduction. It proposes a series of actions for the period 2021-2030.

Selected enablers 

Financial resources, reforms and investments, in a people-centred approach, as well as science and innovation, are strong means to implement measures to support the SDGs in the EU. Within Cohesion policy, a budget of EUR 99.3 billion (2021-27) is dedicated to the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+). It provides a major contribution to the EU’s efforts to end poverty and support social inclusion, because Member States are required to allocate at least 25% of their ESF+ resources to promote social inclusion. For example, the current programming period includes a specific ESF+ objective to promote the socio-economic integration of marginalised communities such as the Roma.

The Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived  (FEAD) specifically supports actions by EU countries in providing food, clothing and other essential goods to the poorest in society. It also provides support through non-material social inclusion measures. Since April 2020, FEAD could support specific measures for addressing the COVID-19 crisis. For people living on the streets of Sweden, the risks of exploitation, poor health, and hate crimes are particularly serious if individuals are from another country or culture. Supported through FEAD, the Pentru Tine - För Dig (‘For you’) project in Sweden gave marginalised people who were homeless vital information and the support they needed to find their way out of material deprivation and social isolation.

Beneficiaries of these EU funds must respect gender equality and non-discrimination principles.

The Regulation on the  common agricultural policy (CAP) strategic plan for 2023-27  also links the CAP to the SDG poverty reduction objectives by providing income support in remote areas. Poverty in rural areas decreased significantly from 30% in 2010 to 22.5% in 2021. 

As part of the revision of the EU emissions trading system (EU ETS), the Social Climate Fund will address any social impacts that arise from the new system and will support those affected by energy and transport poverty in particular.

Long-standing EU initiatives were complemented by additional EU efforts to address the impact of the pandemic on the poorest households, including under the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII and CRII+) taken in the framework of cohesion policy. Some Member States, through their national recovery and resilience plans , are investing in the modernisation and digitalisation of social benefit systems, which will improve their coverage. A few investments also focus on fighting energy poverty and on improving access to food and water sanitation for the poorest households. In addition, according to the Governance Regulation 3 , the objective of Member States' National energy and climate plans is closely linked to addressing energy poverty and shall outline policies and measures to tackle it. 

For example, Portugal has set up a new strategy to combat poverty through the development of a multidimensional, integrated, medium- and long-term approach. This reform is further complemented by specific investments in the most deprived metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto. It provides a framework to support dedicated actions targeting specific groups, from children to older people, including the most vulnerable groups. For instance, it sets out conditions for the development and implementation of policies focusing on specific challenges of social exclusion and poverty at the local level. In addition, it also creates a single monitoring framework for poverty-related indicators.

Research and innovation actions under Horizon Europe explore the root causes and drivers of inequalities, social inclusion and poverty in Europe. The project MapIneq  takes a life-course perspective to map and visualise drivers of inequalities. It seeks to understand how various socio-economic conditions, policies, societal changes and changes over the life course affect inequalities in the domains of family, health, education and work. The aim of the Solutions to Tackle Energy Poverty (STEP) project is to alleviate energy poverty by facilitating behavioural change through trusted, tailored advice, provided directly to consumers in or at risk of energy poverty, and by implementing low-cost energy efficiency solutions in energy-poor households. 

Another example is the project ‘Plan for and evaluate the European Child Guarantee in Luxembourg’ supported by the Technical Support Instrument under the call for 2022. The project aims at implementing the European Child Guarantee and reaching the objectives of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Its main goal is to prevent and combat child poverty and social exclusion. The project will provide Luxembourg with help to improve monitoring and evaluation tools and to conduct meaningful stakeholder consultations that are necessary for an envisaged action plan. 

Stakeholder engagement 

The EU delivers on its poverty reduction agenda in a collaborative approach. For example, through the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) , the EU supports the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN). This is the largest European network of national, regional and local networks involving anti-poverty non-governmental organisations and grassroots groups, as well as European organisations, active in the fight against poverty and social exclusion. 

In June 2021, European institutions, EU governments and civil society committed to working together towards combating homelessness in the EU. The European Platform on Combating Homelessness  serves to trigger dialogue, facilitate mutual learning, improve evidence and monitoring, and strengthen cooperation among all players that work to combat homelessness. The platform offers an opportunity to engage and work with local players, including cities and service providers. This will enable all involved to better exchange their knowledge and practices, and identify efficient and innovative approaches, to make progress on eradicating homelessness.

To tackle societal challenges of poverty and social exclusion, the European Social Innovation Competition is supporting early-stage ideas and facilitating a network of radical innovators to shape our society for the better. It awards four prizes for the best socially innovative projects for a more inclusive, just and sustainable Europe. In 2022, social innovators tackled the 'future of living' and submitted proposals for affordable and sustainable housing districts. 

Multi-level approach 

SDG delivery implies ambitious action at all levels. At national level, for example, Latvia launched its minimum income level reform in 2021. The establishment of a minimum income threshold and its periodic review ensures that households and people with revenues below that level can claim municipal social assistance, and they are entitled to a higher state minimum pension and state social security benefits. The minimum income reform applies to people in need, retired people and people with disabilities who receive the minimum benefits and pensions.

At local level, the city of Košice in Slovakia is committed to SDG 1 through a project co-funded by the European Social Fund and based on a Housing First approach. The project provides affordable housing and a range of support measures to 23 families - with the plan to double this number - enabling 150 people, both parents and children, to live more stable lives, with no stigma of homelessness. It focuses on helping individuals and families to find and maintain accommodation, matching families and young people with housing, social and healthcare services, and legal support.

EU external action

Global trends

While world poverty rates decreased from 27.7% in 2000 to 8.6% in 2018, 660 million people were still living below the poverty line in 2019, of whom 347 million were in least developed countries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN estimates that an additional 93 million people were pushed into extreme poverty in 2022, when compared with pre-pandemic levels. These estimates are expected to be further revised upwards when taking account of the global impacts of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. 

As to the measures to prevent and combat poverty, despite the significant expansion of social protection programmes during the COVID-19 crisis, only 47% of the global population is covered by at least one social protection programme. In Africa, this rate falls to 17%.

Internal/external coherence including policy coherence for development 

Given the multidimensional nature of poverty, SDG 1 is closely interlinked with other SDGs. High in-work poverty rates show that employment does not necessarily prevent poverty, with about 21% of all employees worldwide living in poverty in 2021. To tackle this challenge and to ensure that European consumption does not contribute to poverty worldwide, the EU provides comprehensive tools to promote decent work in the EU and worldwide. The Communication on decent work worldwide includes EU policies and initiatives with outreach beyond the EU, EU bilateral and regional relations, the EU in international and multilateral fora, and its engagement with stakeholders and in global partnerships. 

A key objective of the EU’s international partnership policy is to promote decent work, including social protection, in line with the EU’s strong commitment to fully implement the 2030 Agenda. This is also reflected in the 2017 European Consensus on Development. The EU actively contributes to International Labour Organization processes of setting labour standards, supervising their application, and promoting their implementation. 

Furthermore, specific existing and upcoming EU tools consist of legislative proposals to tighten the responsibilities of companies in their global value chains, such as the proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

The EU also recognises that child and family poverty is a key driver of child labour, which is a breach of both international labour rights and the rights of the child. The EU strategy on the rights of the child commits to making EU supply chains free of child labour, and to provide technical assistance to strengthen labour inspection systems. The proposed forced labour product ban aims to prohibit the entry into the EU market of products made with forced labour, including forced child labour. In parallel, EU development cooperation seeks to eliminate child labour in value chains through initiatives such as CLEAR Cotton , the  Sustainable Cocoa  initiative, and the recently adopted  action in value chains with high child labour prevalence and exports to EU. 

In addition, through sector-specific initiatives, the EU further promotes decent work and social protection in specific areas. Hence, the Farm to Fork Strategy aims at ensuring decent work in global food supply chains, including safe and fair working conditions and rights. The considerations of workers’ social protection, their working and housing conditions, and their health and safety protection all play a major role in building fair, strong and sustainable food systems, which benefit all tiers of the value chain, including through poverty reduction. 

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

In 2021, EU institutions 4 reported to the OECD commitments for EUR 8.1 billion in projects contributing to SDG 1. The greatest share of the EU contribution to SDG 1 is accounted for by projects that target SDG 1 as the main SDG. These projects also contribute to several other interlinked SDGs such as SDG 8, SDG 13, SDG 3, SDG 4, SDG 5 and SDG 2. Other SDGs also contribute to SDG 1 as a significant objective. The main contributors are SDG 8, SDG 16 and SDG 2. When taking into account also other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD)  5  of the EU to SDG 1 amounted to EUR 9.7 billion in 2021.

Collectively, the EU and those Member States that reported on SDGs 6 to the OECD in 2021 contributed EUR 17.8 billion to SDG 1. Financial flows from the EU and Member States to SDG 1 have a strong global component (41%). At regional level, support to SDG 1 predominantly focuses on projects in Africa (45%) and Asia (25%). There are also a substantial number of global contributions which target SDG 1 at a broader level (20%). 

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement

Eradicating poverty in all its dimensions, tackling discrimination and inequalities, and leaving no one behind are all at the heart of the EU’s development cooperation policy and international partnerships, as laid down in the 2017 European Consensus on Development. Consistent with the EU Treaties and the EU’s current external financial instrument , poverty reduction and attention to the most vulnerable segments of the population are at the forefront of all cooperation programmes. 

In this context, and in line with partner countries’ own policies and plans for eradicating poverty globally, the EU’s priorities for its external actions contributing to SDG 1 and interlinked SDGs are to: 

·reduce the overall number of people living in poverty;

·establish solid social protection systems, in particular for the most vulnerable; and

·create educational and economic opportunities to get people out of poverty.

To this end, the EU supports through its partnerships policies that seek to maximise positive social outcomes and impacts, notably for social inclusion and human development. The EU also promotes domestic resource mobilisation and redistributive public policies that enable the sharing of benefits of growth and improved access to opportunities. Given the multidimensional nature of poverty, the EU pays particular attention to the interlinkages between the SDGs, with actions that can create co-benefits and meet multiple objectives in a coherent way. 

EU budget support is a modality of action that can be instrumental in supporting policy development aimed at benefiting the poor. It is estimated that, between 2014 and 2020, 75% of the EU budget support portfolio (around EUR 11.3 billion globally) contributed to achieving SDG 1. Social protection is at the core of these efforts, as it protects people along the life cycle from poverty and risks. Social protection also enables access to basic services, such as education, water, sanitation, and adequate nutrition. Social protection is contributing to the implementation of the Global Gateway strategy.

Poverty, conflict, fragility and forced displacement are deeply interlinked and must be addressed in a consistent and comprehensive way by addressing their various root causes. Tackling extreme poverty, especially in fragile situations, requires a strengthened link between relief, rehabilitation, and development. It further needs a multi-stakeholder approach, action at various levels, and sustained international engagement. EU and Member States actions operate in the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, recognising the need for conflict-sensitive approaches to development. Social protection support measures, delivered through a combination of short-term humanitarian action and mid/long-term cooperation, directly contribute to achieving resilience, peace, stabilisation, and economic growth in countries in crises. The guidance package on social protection across the nexus is an EU initiative that generates and expands the body of knowledge in this area. The 2017 Joint Communication A Strategic Approach to Resilience in the EU’s external action aligns the EU approach with a broad definition of resilience and to the multidimensional fragility model developed within the OECD. 

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

Eradicating poverty is closely linked to social protection, designed to protect individuals and their families and to ensure they can meet their basic needs throughout their lives. Explicitly addressed in SDG 1, eradicating poverty and strengthening social protection is also instrumental in making progress towards other goals, including SDGs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10. 

Against this background, the EU supports human development and implements several  social protection initiatives . The Socieux+ programme is a demand-driven technical assistance facility aiming to enhance partner countries’ capacity to design, manage, and monitor inclusive, effective and sustainable employment strategies and social protection systems. Implemented since 2013 in partnership with several Member States, it has supported the creation of comprehensive national social protection systems and employment and labour policies in 74 countries, by facilitating the exchange of knowledge and good practices between EU Member States and partner institutions around the world through targeted, short-term activities. 

In addition, the EU, along with some Member States, has launched a new Team Europe Initiative to strengthen social protection in Georgia. It aims to improve and extend social protection services through facilitating access to social services at local level and supporting the development of social protection legislation. 

Further, the initiative ‘Improving synergies between social protection and public finance management’ aims to strengthen national social protection systems by addressing links with public finance management, including the mobilisation of domestic resources to tackle underinvestment in social protection. In 2021, this thematic programme supported the adoption of national social protection policies and laws in Nepal, Cambodia, Senegal and Togo. It also supported a response to the COVID-19 crisis that focused on vulnerable population groups, such as workers in the informal economy, in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Togo, Ethiopia, and Uganda. 

In the context of the COVID-19 response and hence contributing both to SDG1 and SDG 3, the EU has been working closely with the Nigerian authorities and other partners on swift and effective action to combat the pandemic and its effects on the poorest and more vulnerable. Under the project ‘ A hand of fellowship: helping vulnerable communities in Nigeria ’, the EU has contributed to Nigeria’s national response, channelled through the UN COVID-19 Basket Fund. The EU has also helped UNICEF to procure vital health supplies for infected people, while further containing the spread of the virus in the country. 

The EU actively fosters social inclusion, in a manner closely interlinked with several SDGs. The Team Europe Initiative on Demography and Social Inclusion, as part of the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package, will support Uganda in achieving its SDG targets related to the delivery of inclusive social services, with a particular emphasis on healthy lives and well-being, gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls, and inclusive and equitable quality education. In line with SDGs 1 and 10, the EU and Member States will define support actions on the basis of national governance, and sub-national, community-based and geographical approaches. Youth will also be consulted during the formulation and implementation of the Team Europe Initiative.

Actions by the EU and its Member States are mutually supportive and coordinated to ensure complementarity and deliver an impact in support of the SDGs. In addition to acting together with the EU through joint programming and Team Europe Initiatives, Member States carry out their own projects in support of the 2030 Agenda including SDG 1. For illustrative purposes, Portugal contributes to the reduction of poverty and vulnerability to food and nutritional insecurity in the southern provinces of Angola through the project FRESAN, which addresses at the same time family agriculture, food and nutrition security, resilience, rural development, water and adaptation to climate change.

Looking ahead

The Conference on the Future of Europe showed broad support to the need to ensure the full implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights. This includes its relevant headline targets for 2030, at EU, national, regional and local levels, in the area of social protection and inclusion. EU citizens also called on the EU, Member States and social partners to work together to end in-work poverty, address the rights of platform workers, and ban unpaid internships. 

The Commission will continue its work on essential services, with the aim to ensure the reliable provision of services fundamental for social or economic activities in many different sectors. To address in-work poverty, new guidelines will be published about collective agreements regarding the working conditions of solo self-employed people. The quality framework for traineeships will also be reviewed to ensure that traineeships provide for good-quality learning content and appropriate working conditions and should not be a substitute for regular jobs or a precondition for a job placement. 

Globally, the EU will continue to take determined action to accelerate implementation measures to achieve SDG 1. This will include the roll-out of a range of multiannual indicative programmes with partner countries where poverty eradication and/or social protection are a shared priority, and joining partners in efforts to build nationally appropriate social protection floors, with a view to achieving universal social protection. The Commission will support a new regional Team Europe Initiative on Social Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will also support the implementation strategy of the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions . Through a new thematic programme under the Universal Social Protection 2030 initiative, the EU will also support the digital convergence initiative in pursuit of more inclusive and interoperable social protection information systems. The EU also supports the initiative to establish a global fund for social protection .

SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture 

EU internal action

Overview and challenges 

Various crises – the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian war against Ukraine and the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – have increased pressures on global food systems and placed food security at the top of the political agenda.

The EU is largely self-sufficient for key agricultural products. It is a main wheat and barley exporter and is able to cover a high share of its consumption for other staple crops such as maize or sugar. The EU is also self-sufficient for most animal products, including dairy and meat; the notable exception is seafood. Agricultural production trends have been favourable over the past 5 years. Labour productivity in the EU’s agricultural sector has improved and public investments in agricultural R&D have increased. In addition, the area under organic farming has grown steadily. 

Agricultural production in the EU does have some adverse impacts, most notably water use stress, rising nitrate concentrations in EU groundwater bodies, and the continued decline of common farmland birds and pollinators. The EU land area at risk of severe soil erosion by water has decreased slightly, as have the ammonia emissions from agriculture. 

In the EU, 36.2 million people cannot afford a quality meal every other day. At the same time, it is estimated that around 10% of food made available to EU consumers (retail, food services and households) may be wasted. Reducing food losses and food waste has the potential to reduce the resources we use to produce the food that we eat and to address some food security challenges. Food accounts for around 45% of the environmental impacts of EU consumers. More than 80% of agricultural emissions are attributable to the livestock sector.

In the current EU food environment, most people are exposed and predisposed to unsustainable food choices and unhealthy eating patterns; these are closely related to an increased risk of non-communicable diseases. In 2019, 16.5% of the population aged 18 or over suffered from obesity, a 1.1 percentage point increase since 2014. Recent surveys show that one in three children aged 6-9 and 52% of the adult population in the EU are overweight or obese. Up to 70% of national health budgets were spent on the treatment of diseases linked to obesity. Indeed, obesity alone was responsible for reducing life expectancy by up to 4 years, reducing GDP growth by up to 4.5 percentage points, and consuming up to 7% of health budgets. 

2030 targets and trends at EU level

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 2 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and in Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs. 

Key initiatives 

The EU has a wide range of policies in place that address or touch on the various aspects of SDG 2. This section provides an overview of some of the most recent and relevant initiatives. 

The EU’s common agricultural policy  provides income support, market measures and rural development measures to safeguard farmers’ income and to increase agricultural productivity in a sustainable way while protecting rural landscapes and the environment. 

The EU farm to fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system, adopted in May 2020, aims at: i) ensuring that the food chain, covering food production, transport, distribution, marketing and consumption, has a neutral or positive environmental impact; ii) ensuring food security, nutrition and public health, including sustainable seafood production through sustainable aquaculture and fisheries; and iii) preserving the affordability of food while generating fairer economic returns in the supply chain, so that ultimately the most sustainable food also becomes the most affordable, fostering the competitiveness of the EU supply sector, promoting fair trade, and creating new business opportunities, while ensuring integrity of the single market and occupational health and safety. 

The biodiversity strategy for 2030 aims to bring back at least 10% of agricultural area under high-diversity landscape features in order to provide space for wild animals, plants, pollinators and natural pest regulators. 

An  EU contingency plan for food security in times of crisis was published in November 2021. The plan aims to ensure a sufficient and varied supply of safe, nutritious, affordable and sustainable food to citizens at all times. 

The March 2022 Communication on safeguarding food security and reinforcing the resilience of food systems presented a range of short-term and medium-term actions to increase global food security and to support farmers and consumers in the EU in light of rising food prices and input costs, such as energy and fertilisers. 

The May 2022 Solidarity Lanes Communication set out an action plan to establish Solidarity Lanes to ensure Ukraine can export grain, but also import the goods it needs, from humanitarian aid to animal feed and fertilisers.

In June 2022, the Commission proposed a Regulation for the sustainable use of plant protection products. This seeks to support the Farm to Fork strategy and will establish a legal basis for the calculation and publication of progress towards both pesticide reduction targets in the Farm to Fork strategy. 

The November 2022 Communication on ensuring availability and affordability of fertilisers presented a wide range of actions and guidance on how to tackle the challenges that EU farmers and industry, as well as partner countries , are currently facing.

In January 2023, the Commission published a staff working document that analyses the main  drivers of food security . 

Selected enablers

The  European Agricultural Guarantee Fund has a budget allocation of EUR 291.1 billion. Up to EUR 270 billion will be provided for income support schemes, with the remainder committed to supporting agricultural markets. 

For the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development , the total allocation amounts to EUR 95.5 billion. This includes EUR 8.1 billion from the NextGenerationEU recovery instrument to help address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The EU4Health programme is the key financial tool for protecting public health and fighting major public health threats. Under this programme, the EU will invest EUR 5.3 billion in actions with a view to complementing policies in EU countries and achieving 10 specific objectives, including health promotion and disease prevention. 

The Fund for European aid to the most deprived (FEAD) supports actions by EU countries in providing food, clothing and other essential goods to the poorest in society. It also covers non-material social inclusion measures. In April 2020, new amendments to the FEAD Regulation entered into force, introducing specific measures for addressing the COVID-19 crisis. 

The Recovery and Resilience Facility also supports measures to promote sustainable agriculture. For instance, Italy's recovery and resilience plan includes a measure to support a variety of investments in digitalisation, transport and innovation for the agri-food sector to reduce the costs of food production and promote precision farming and traceability. This action also aims to improve the sector's energy efficiency by increasing the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy.

The project ‘Enabling politically sensitive climate change impact assessments for the 21st century (POLIMPACT)’ is financed by a European Research Council grant under Horizon Europe 2021. Using cutting-edge methods, including dynamic statistical simulations, machine learning, and expert elicitation, the project will develop a new portfolio of empirically grounded and rigorously validated scenario projections on governance, conflict, and economic development. This will, for the first time, enable accounting for political sources of vulnerability in climate change impact assessments. If successful, POLIMPACT will initiate a major revision in climate change impact modelling, radically improving the quality and real-world relevance of climate change impact assessments for key social risks over the 21st century. 

The objective of the BrightSpace project, funded under Horizon Europe 2022, is to design effective and sustainable strategies for assessing and addressing the challenges of EU agriculture to navigate within a safe and just operating space, including planetary boundaries. BrightSpace will provide a set of analytical instruments to experiment, analyse, and coordinate the effects of innovative governance structures and policies related to agriculture to navigate within a safe and just operating space. The project is expected to run from the end of 2022 to the end of 2027 and features 14 different partners from all over the EU. 

Another example is the project 'Implementation and embedding a reform programme for the better regulation of food in Ireland' supported by the Technical Support Instrument under the call for 2021. The Irish agri-food sector has been negatively affected both by Brexit, due to the high trade intensity with the UK, and by the coronavirus crisis. The objective of the project is to restructure food control systems in Ireland to strengthen the food safety, authenticity and competitiveness of its agri-food sector. 

Stakeholder engagement

The EU delivers on SDG 2 in a collaborative approach. Some example are as follows.

·The EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste  is a multi-stakeholder platform bringing together international organisations, Member States and actors in the food value chain. It aims to accelerate the EU’s progress towards SDG target 12.3, by defining measures needed to prevent food waste, sharing best practice and evaluating progress made over time. The Platform has a sub-group dedicated to facilitating  food donation . 

· The Advisory Group on Sustainability of Food Systems  will provide the Commission with stakeholder views on the sustainability of food systems. 

· The EU Code of Conduct on Responsible Food Business and Marketing Practices  sets out the actions that actors ‘between the farm and the fork’, such as food processors, food service operators and retailers, can voluntarily commit to undertake to tangibly improve and communicate their sustainability performance. 

·EIT Food is a Knowledge and Innovation Community with a unique combination of public engagement, education, innovation and support to new business models allows the partnership to tackle the challenges of healthier diets, circular food systems and ensuring food security and safety.

·Relevant stakeholders in the food supply chain are part of the  European food security crisis preparedness and response mechanism . 

·In 2022, the EU organic awards took place for the first time. 

Multilevel approach

SDG delivery implies ambitious action at all levels. Good practices in implementing SDG 2 include the following.

·At national level, France has launched its national food programme (Programme national pour l’alimentation (PNA) for the years 2019 to 2023. The PNA aims at improving the nutritious quality and diversification of food distributed within the country, and at tackling food insecurity and food waste. This is achieved through a yearly call for projects to support local initiatives and associations, giving awards to outstanding initiatives, and a national communication campaign to promote the PNA. 

·Czechia facilitates food donation and tackles food waste with the help of food banks. Food business operators may donate food on a voluntary basis. However, there is a legal obligation for food stores bigger than 400 m2 to donate to charity organisations any safe food that cannot be sold. The Ministry of Agriculture is providing financial support to food banks in the form of subsidies. Thanks to these measures, more than 21 000 tonnes of food were saved in 2019 and donated to 100 000 beneficiaries. In 2020, Czech food banks registered a 60% increase in the number of people applying for food aid as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and in 2021 they helped more than 200 000 beneficiaries. In Czechia, there are currently 15 food banks and they have collected food to a value of over CZK 425 million (over EUR 17 million). 

·In Sweden, the Mistra Food Futures programme will create a science-based platform to enable transformation of the Swedish food system. It considers sustainability in all its three dimensions: environmental, economic and social. 

·With the support of the EU, the city of Maribor in Slovenia has developed a project to deal with its internal waste while meeting the city's needs. Maribor uses biological waste, waste from green trimmings and excavation materials from construction to produce innovative urban soil with a tailor-made pilot production plant. The new urban soil is then made available for citizens to use for urban agricultural activities, increasing their food self-sufficiency and minimising the city's environmental footprint. 

EU external action

Global trends

In recent years, the absolute number of people going hungry and suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition has been gradually rising. According to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition report, as many as 828 million people worldwide were suffering from hunger in 2021 and almost 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed as many as 150 million more people into hunger, and the impacts of the war in Ukraine on food and fertiliser prices have significantly worsened the situation.

Conflicts, climate change and environmental degradation, and economic shocks have been eroding the resilience of food systems around the world. According to the Global Network Against Food Crises, an initiative founded by the EU, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme, a total of 205 million people were in food crisis, emergency or famine in 2022. This makes 2022 the fourth consecutive year of rising levels of acute food insecurity.

Internal/external coherence including policy coherence for development 

A global systemic transformation is necessary to make food and agricultural systems sustainable and resilient. The EU is working actively with its international partners to develop pathways for the global food system transformation, including through better data and evidence-based policymaking. The EU also substantially contributed to the success of the UN Food Systems and the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth (N4G) summits. 

The DeSIRA initiative on the development of smart innovation through research in agriculture aims at contributing to a climate-relevant, productive and sustainable transformation of agriculture and food systems in partner countries. The EU pledged EUR 140 million to support CGIAR, the largest international network on agricultural research for development, in furthering food systems research to tackle hunger, preserve natural resources and improve livelihoods.

Furthermore, the EU Space Programme is providing innovative solutions to make agriculture more productive and sustainable. For example, Earth observation data provided by the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service helps national bodies in partner countries to monitor crop conditions, providing early warnings on failing crops and predicting crop yields. This enables a considerable improvement in how to use fertilisers, fuel and pesticides resulting in healthier food and a reduced environmental impact. 

The EU is pursuing the transition towards more sustainable food systems consistent with actions in other key areas such as trade. With the launch of the Farm to Fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system, the EU seeks to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of its food system and strengthen its resilience, and to ensure food security in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss. As the world’s largest food importer, and in line with the EU trade policy review, the EU is also using its free trade agreements to stimulate and incentivise more sustainable practices by its trade partners. One example is the inclusion of a chapter on sustainable food systems in the free trade agreement (FTA) agreed with New Zealand and Chile and proposed in ongoing FTA negotiations with Australia and Indonesia. The EU will strive to promote international standards in relevant international bodies. It will encourage the production of agri-food products complying with high safety and sustainability standards, and will support small-scale farmers in meeting these standards and in accessing markets. 

Furthermore, the recognition and protection of geographical indications are key aspects of trade agreements concluded by the EU with partner countries. Such recognition gives consumers a guarantee of authenticity and quality linked to its origin, reputation and know-how developed to produce genuine products.

Throughout the reforms of the common agricultural policy (CAP), the EU focused on providing income support to farmers and ensuring targeted measures aimed at environmental protection whilst minimising the risk of creating distortions in global agricultural markets. The CAP contributes to the EU’s international commitments by:

·focusing on an enhanced environmental and climate delivery, helping to secure resource efficiency and fight the consequences of climate change in the EU and globally; 

·aiming to better use the potential of knowledge, innovation and technologies with a view to a more sustainable farming sector and to provide opportunities for rural economies; 

·maintaining the very favourable terms of trade in agricultural products for partner countries , particularly for least developed countries; and

·encouraging non-EU countries, both through bilateral and multilateral initiatives, to add value to agri-food production, for example by adopting and developing systems for the protection of geographical indications or organic production. 

As concerns environmental impacts, the EU is highly dependent on natural resources embodied in goods and services consumed within the EU. This is illustrated by the land footprint, an estimated amount of land needed to produce one unit of a given final product consumed in a country, regardless of where in the world this land was used. With regard to imported agricultural products, the EU’s global farmland footprint, combining cropland used to cultivate crops and grassland used to produce meat and dairy products, represented around 4% of farmland worldwide in 2019. In addition, the EU’s food demand is responsible for 5% of the EU’s total CO2 consumption-based footprint and the EU imports about 70% of its seafood consumption. These spillover effects take place both within and outside the EU, and therefore require high levels of policy consistency between internal and external actions (an issue described below in other areas, such as SDG 14). Measures such as the new Regulation on deforestation-free supply chains for a range of agricultural commodities and derived products mainly linked to deforestation and forest degradation aim at reducing the footprint of EU consumption linked to deforestation driven by land conversion for agricultural use. 

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

In 2021, EU institutions reported to the OECD commitments for EUR 1.1 billion in projects contributing to SDG 2. The main share of the EU contribution to SDG 2 is accounted for by projects that target SDG 2 as the main SDG. These projects also contribute to other interlinked SDGs such as SDG 1, SDG 5, SDG 8 and SDG 13. Other SDGs also contribute to SDG 2 as a significant objective. The main contributors are SDG 1, SDG 13 and SDG 14. When taking into account also other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD) of the EU to SDG 2 amounted to EUR 3.6 billion in 2021.

In terms of selected results of the assistance 7 , EU assistance to food-insecure people reached 28 million people, while nearly 19 million women of reproductive age, adolescent girls and children were reached by EU-funded nutrition-related interventions. In addition, over 21 million smallholder farmers benefited from EU interventions aimed at increasing their sustainable production, access to markets, and/or land security.

Collectively, the EU and those Member States that reported on SDGs to the OECD in 2021 contributed EUR 5.4 billion to SDG 2. EU and Member State funding to SDG 2 in 2021 predominantly focused on projects in Africa (42%) and Asia (32%). The collective response as Team Europe to global food insecurity exacerbated by the war of aggression against Ukraine is supported by an envelope of around EUR 18 billion from the EU and its Member States for the period 2021-2024 which contributes to SDG 2. 

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement 

The deteriorating situation on SDG 2 requires both longer-term and immediate life-saving responses. In terms of longer-term assistance, the EU focuses on actions targeting sustainable agriculture and seafood production, resilience of food systems, research and innovation, and nutrition. With regard to immediate action, the EU is a main provider of humanitarian food assistance. The EU applies a nexus approach to support synergies between the short- and long-term responses. 

To accelerate progress in cooperation with Africa, the EU launched two major initiatives . One is on sustainable agri-value chains, which aims to boost public and private investments in African agri-value chains. The second is on resilient food systems, which supports African food systems to become more resilient to unfavourable trends, shocks and crises. 

The fight against acute hunger and acute malnutrition is also at the centre of the EU’s humanitarian interventions. Food assistance, where possible through cash transfers, addresses the most vulnerable. As for the immediate and underlying causes of malnutrition, these are addressed through nutrition interventions targeting the specific needs of vulnerable groups. A collective Team Europe commitment amounting to EUR 4.3 billion for 2021-2024 was made at the Nutrition for Growth Summit in 2021, of which the EU pledged EUR 2.5 billion, to address all forms of malnutrition in humanitarian and development settings.

In the current context of the Russian war against Ukraine and the ensuing increases in food and energy prices, the Commission took action to urgently support the most vulnerable groups in countries and regions affected by food price increases in north Africa, the Middle East, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa by increased commitments in humanitarian aid, short-term tailor-made support and actions facilitating trade and supporting food systems, while working through the multilateral system to tackle global challenges.

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

In relation to SDG 2, inspired by the EU Farm to Fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system, in the framework of the European Green Deal, the EU and Member States are joining forces to support Uzbekistan’s agri-food sector and rural development through a Team Europe Initiative supporting private sector growth, job creation, inclusion, and climate change mitigation and adaption aiming for inclusive and green growth. The initiative supports the roll-out of the Global Gateway strategy.

In Rwanda, under the Team Europe Initiative Sustainable and Inclusive Agricultural Transformation, the EU and Member States are supporting the shift towards market-oriented high-value cropping systems geared towards feeding the cities. This initiative, in support of the Global Gateway Africa-Europe investment package, also aims to contribute to food and nutrition security by supporting the agricultural transition to more climate-resilient and inclusive food systems. 

The Team Europe Initiative Climate-Smart Agriculture-Based Resilience Building supports building a more resilient agriculture sector in Zimbabwe, combining smart agricultural practices with improvements on territorial planning and access to renewable energy at community level. Through climate-smart and environmentally conscious agro-ecological principles, the initiative aims to contribute to enhanced food security, economic and environmental resilience, and new export possibilities, all in support of the Global Gateway. 

The EU supports nutrition and food security in Honduras as a response to the country’s worsening inequality, poverty and food insecurity problems following the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 60% of the funds target food security and resilience in the most vulnerable regions, supporting food assistance, agricultural production, access to credit and markets and improved water infrastructure. Overall, the EU helped 39 vulnerable municipalities to develop food security and nutrition development plans, benefiting more than 700 000 inhabitants. 

In Benin, EU budget support prompted a substantive reform of the agricultural sector and helped double the value of agricultural exports between 2014 and 2020 even despite the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Since 2017, the EU has provided budget support to Georgia’s strategy for agriculture and rural development contributing to a strengthened policy framework for rural development, improved agriculture, diversified rural economic opportunities, and an enhanced environment for a more effective impact on poverty alleviation.

EU humanitarian funding for nutrition, which aims at providing life-saving interventions to the most vulnerable populations, has targeted severely malnourished children such as in Sudan, as well as children under 5 years of age and pregnant and lactating women in many countries including Syria. Moreover, the EU supports WFP initiatives such as a voucher programme for fresh food with high nutritional values in Syria or emergency food distribution and cash in South Sudan. To help address the food and nutrition crisis in the Sahel and Lake Chad regions of Africa, which affects more than 38 million people, the EU has deployed a combination of humanitarian and development funding (as of April 2022, EUR 654 million committed for food security and resilience in the region over the period 2021-2024) implemented under a humanitarian-development-peace approach.

In a regional approach for the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan), the EU supports UNICEF in a three-year partnership aimed at fighting children’s malnutrition through improved access to efficient and integrated management of severe acute malnutrition.

In Central America, actions to address food security and nutrition needs, and the humanitarian response, have been concentrated in the Dry Corridor countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador) where the EU has provided food assistance as well as direct cash transfers, vouchers and in-kind assistance, while helping to build resilience.

In Venezuela and Colombia, the EU supports the WFP to address the food and nutrition consequences of the Venezuelan crisis. Actions tackle education needs, food insecurity and socio-economic vulnerabilities of affected populations, with a focus on children, and vulnerable indigenous and migrant populations.

Actions by the EU and its Member States are mutually reinforcing and coordinated to ensure complementarity and impact in support of the SDGs. In addition to acting together with the EU through joint programming and Team Europe Initiatives, Member States carry out their own projects in support of the 2030 Agenda, including SDG 2, such as the following initiatives for illustrative purposes.

Apart from being a major funder of CGIAR, Sweden supports agricultural development projects targeting SDG 2 with strong interlinkages to other SDGs. Its Beog-Puuto project (Farms of the future) aims at restoring eroded abandoned farmland, increasing productivity in family farms, and strengthening resilience of 50 000 vulnerable households in dry areas in northern and eastern Burkina Faso. The GROW project in Liberia focuses on improving the quality of cocoa through training in good agricultural practices, setting up traceability systems, investment in organic certification, branding and marketing, partner coaching, and linking partners with international premium market buyers. 

Germany’s support to food security, agriculture and rural development ranges from action through global programmes to initiatives such as the establishment of Green Innovation Centres and Centres of Excellence in 15 African partner countries. Centres of Excellence on climate change and sustainable land management have been established in Southern and West Africa. The Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chain Initiative brings together more than 70 stakeholders from the private sector, civil society and politics, with the aim of achieving more sustainability in global agricultural supply chains, notably in relation to resource efficiency and preventing deforestation, creating jobs and improving the incomes and living conditions of smallholders. 

Looking ahead

The Commission will continue its work on strengthening food security and building sustainable and resilient food systems. For example, going forward, the Commission will table proposals on the following. 

·A general legislative framework for sustainable food systems, which will aim to accelerate and facilitate the transition to sustainability. It will mainstream sustainability in food-related policies and across the entire value chain, from primary producers to consumers. In addition, the framework will help facilitate favourable food environments. 

·Setting EU-level targets as part of the EU’s commitment to reduce food waste. 

·Revising EU marketing standards for agricultural and seafood products in order to update these standards and encourage the supply of more sustainable products to consumers. 

·A new soil health law as announced in the EU soil strategy for 2030. 

The Commission will also consider new areas of action, such as legislation for plants produced by certain new genomic techniques.

On the external side, the EU will continue to take determined actions to accelerate the implementation of SDG 2 globally. This includes promoting sustainability in the key multilateral organisations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to support partner countries to ensure a sustainable future for the global food system 8 . Its action is undertaken through the roll-out of a range of multiannual indicative programmes with partner countries where ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture, is a shared priority. A tangible contribution to SDG 2 (and other interlinked SDGs) will be the deployment of the Global Gateway strategy at regional and national level, including the following initiatives presented during the sixth EU-Africa Summit as part of the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package. 

·Sustainable Agri-Value Chains: these aim to boost public and private investments in African agri-value chains, of which 95 have been identified so far in 23 sectors.

·Resilient Food Systems: these support African food systems in becoming more resistant towards unfavourable trends, shocks and crises. 

In addition, while working towards the transition to sustainable food systems, the EU will continue to focus on short-term humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable. 

SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

EU internal action

Overview and challenges 

Helping to ensure healthy lives and promoting well-being for all ages is a major priority for the EU. SDG targets related to this goal include the following:

·reducing the global maternal mortality ratio; ending preventable deaths of new-borns and children;

·ending the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis and other communicable diseases;

·achieving universal health coverage and access to safe, effective and affordable medicines and vaccines for all;

·strengthening country capacities for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks;

·reducing mortality from non-communicable diseases; and

·halving the health impact of air pollution and the number of road deaths.

While progress had been made in many of these areas in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic severely undermined some of these efforts by overwhelming healthcare systems in the EU and causing disruptions and delays in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases other than COVID-19. Life expectancy, which had been on the rise, decreased across the board, and we expect to see rising incidences of cancer, HIV, tuberculosis and viral hepatitis (B and C), which can only be controlled effectively through timely prevention, diagnosis and treatment. There is also a dramatic rise in mental health problems, resulting from isolation, anxiety and fear during the pandemic, further exacerbated by continuing global crises.

Lifestyle-related risk factors such as poor diet and physical inactivity are fuelling the rising burden of obesity, including childhood obesity, and non-communicable diseases. This too was an impact of the pandemic, when many people were more inactive and resorted to unhealthy habits as coping mechanisms. Poor lifestyle choices directly affect the quality of life and life expectancy and they have a negative impact on national health and social systems. SDG 3 targets will only be met through sustained, concentrated efforts focused on relevant policy areas.

2030 targets and trends at EU level

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 3 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs. 

Key initiatives 

The EU has a wide range of policies in place that contribute to meeting SDG 3. Some of the most recent and relevant initiatives are set out below. 

The Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan , launched in 2021, sets out a new EU approach to cancer prevention (including by vaccination), treatment and care through an integrated, health-in-all-policies and multi-stakeholder approach. It will work in tandem with the Horizon Europe Mission on Cancer, ensuring coherence between ambitious research goals and realistic policy aims. The EU4Health programme and other funding programmes have earmarked a total of EUR 4 billion for actions addressing cancer. 

Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan has also put forward actions to help create a tobacco-free generation where less than 5% of the population uses tobacco by 2040, compared with around 25% today. The Commission will continue to prioritise protecting young people from the harmful effects of tobacco and related products, especially given the growing popularity of emerging tobacco and nicotine products. 

The Healthier Together – EU non-communicable diseases initiative, with a budget of EUR 353 million, was launched in 2022 to support EU countries in identifying and implementing effective policies and actions to reduce the burden of major non-communicable diseases and to improve citizens’ health and well-being. Actions on the five strands are being taken forward under the EU4Health programme’s annual work programmes for 2022 and 2023. 

The Council Recommendation on strengthened cooperation against vaccine-preventable diseases, adopted in 2018, calls for a multitude of actions with a common goal of increasing the uptake of vaccination across the EU in a life-course perspective.

Access to healthcare is one of the 20 principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights and its Action Plan . Directive 2011/24/EU on patient rights in cross-border healthcare gives EU citizens the right to access healthcare in the EU and to be reimbursed. The Strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities 2021–2030 aims to ensure that all people with disabilities can fully participate in society and the economy. Fostering the development of digital health services, the European Health Data Space promotes access to health data to improve healthcare, research and policymaking. The European Care Strategy promotes quality, affordable and accessible care services across the EU and supports the improvement of the situation both for care receivers and for the people caring for them, professionally or informally. 

The Zero Pollution Action Plan, adopted in 2021, includes targets to reduce the health and environmental impacts of pollution by 2030. It also envisaged legislative proposals, including to implement stricter standards for industrial emissions and air pollution. Several of these proposals have been adopted in the meantime. 

The EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030 establishes and underpins the EU’s goal of halving the number of fatalities and serious injuries on European roads by 2030 as a milestone on the way to ‘Vision Zero’ – zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2050. The Commission has also proposed to revise the existing Directive on Intelligent Transport Systems. This will, inter alia, ensure that essential safety-related services are made available to drivers along the TEN-T road network. 

The Commission has also pioneered a major safety eCall initiative. This aims to save lives by speeding up the emergency response times in the event of a road crash anywhere in Europe. This initiative requires all new cars sold in the EU to be fitted with eCall devices that use space data from Galileo and EGNOS, the EU Space Programme flagships for satellite navigation. The device will automatically dial the European emergency number 112 to alert rescue services in the event of an accident and provide the vehicle’s exact location. 

Selected enablers 

The Commission has coordinated and continues to implement a common European response to the coronavirus outbreak. The key part of this response is reflected in the legislative package forming part of the European Health Union . The package aims to expand EU capacity for prevention, preparedness, surveillance, risk assessment, early warning and response, to address cross-border health threats and better protect EU citizens. It strengthens the EU health security framework ( Regulation on serious cross-border threats to health ), bolsters mandates of the key agencies, namely the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and provides for the functioning of the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) in times of crisis.

In the same vein, EU preparedness by implementing existing medical capacities under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) will be boosted through the rescEU reserve. To date, eleven medical stockpiles exist and comprise of countermeasures, equipment and relevant items to fight cross-border threats to health. This comes on top of the already existing assets in the field of medical evacuation and will soon be further complemented by four CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) stockpiling reserves and Emergency Medical Teams complemented by specialised care teams being set up under rescEU, and of the existing fully operational and deployable medical capacities included in the European Civil Protection Pool (ECPP).

Moreover, resolute action has been taken to reinforce EU public health sectors and mitigate the socio-economic impact in the EU. Support to Member States was quickly mobilised to help them coordinate their national responses and contain the virus. In 2020, the Commission joined the COVID-19 vaccine global access facility to accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines for everyone who needs them, and contributed EUR 400 million for vaccine purchasing. 

In November 2022, the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) published its first work plan for preparedness and response to health emergencies in terms of improving access to medical countermeasures. With a budget of EUR 1.3 billion, HERA can now start implementing actions, in collaboration with other services, to strengthen preparedness and response capabilities within the EU for medical countermeasures, address vulnerabilities and strategic dependencies, and contribute to reinforcing the global health emergency architecture in this field. 

The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) was also set up as a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic; it has a budget of EUR 723.8 billion in loans and grants. These are not exclusively reserved for health, but health is one of six areas that the RRF will fund. According to the most recent figures, some EUR 43 billion will go towards health (8.6% of all funding planned under the RRF). 

NextGenerationEU is a temporary recovery instrument with a budget of more than EUR 800 billion to help repair the immediate economic and social damage brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. Part of the budget is reserved for building a safer and healthier EU. All EU countries will be supported: to protect themselves against health threats; to invest more in research and innovation to develop vaccines and treatments; to modernise their health systems so that hospitals in every EU country have better access to new technology and to medical supplies; and to fund training for Europe’s medical and healthcare professionals. 

Cohesion policy funds proved to be the first port of call in helping Member States shouldering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. EU Member States made use of the extra flexibility provided through the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiatives (CRII and CRII+) to prioritise measures to increase spending on healthcare. Under the NextGenerationEU, a specific EUR 50.6 billion under the Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU) supported crisis repair measures through the 2014-2020 Cohesion policy funds. REACT-EU was the very first instrument to be used under NextGenerationEU, with the first payment made on 28 June 2021 to fund medical institutions, researchers, and vulnerable people.

The EU4Health programme , with a total budget provision of EUR 5.3 billion is the main financial instrument for funding the EU’s health initiatives. The programme provided the necessary support in an emergency to address the pandemic, but it also aims to improve the general health of people living in the EU, reduce health inequalities, and strengthen health systems in general. It provides co-funding in the fields of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and viral hepatitis B and C.

The Horizon Europe Cancer Mission call has a budget of EUR 60 million to design and conduct randomised investigator-initiated pragmatic clinical trials. The aim is to deliver effective and evidence-based treatment interventions for implementation by healthcare systems at the level of local communities, EU regions, Member States and associated countries, taking into account socio-economic and biological stratification, such as the biology of the disease, gender, cancer stage, and age. Investments are also planned to establish, scale up or improve primary cancer prevention programmes and to address underlying barriers that prevent their uptake and effective implementation.

The European Commission has also shortlisted 11 new projects worth EUR 120 million from Horizon Europe for supporting and enabling urgent research into the coronavirus and its variants. It will contribute to the Commission's overall action to prevent, mitigate and respond to the impact of the virus and its variants. The 11 shortlisted projects include 312 research teams from 40 countries, with 38 participants are from 23 countries outside of the EU. Among the projects are ‘Cohorts united against COVID-19 variants of concern’ and ‘Clinical trials for therapeutics and vaccines’. 

Under the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, the ‘Multi-country viral hepatitis community screening, vaccination, and care’ project was launched in November 2022. The objective of this proposal is to scale up and adapt community-based viral hepatitis testing and hepatitis B vaccination models of care. It will put a particular focus on marginalised populations with a documented high incidence and prevalence, and will use diagnostic tools and patient-centred referral processes to reduce mortality associated with liver cancer.

Another example is the project ‘Health impacts of air pollution’ in Slovakia, supported by the EU Structural Reform Support Programme under the 2019 call. Slovakia is one of the Member States with insufficient air quality and has one of the highest concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Despite some improvements achieved before the project, the situation remained unsatisfactory and Slovakia lacked a deeper air quality analysis with estimates of health impacts at the micro level. The primary goal of the project was therefore to build a toolbox for cost-effective policies in order to improve air quality and thus reduce human health impact. 

Stakeholder engagement 

The Commission uses a range of different tools to engage with stakeholders over the lifecycle of public health policies. These include the following. 

·The EU Health Policy Platform is an interactive tool to promote discussions about public health concerns, and share knowledge and best practices. The platform hosts thematic networks led by stakeholders, such as a network on HIV, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections, and mental health. 

·EU Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) One Health Network includes government experts from the human health, animal health and environmental sector, EU scientific agencies (ECDC, EMA, and the European Food Safety Authority) and Commission experts. The network aims to present national action plans and strategies, to share best practices, and to discuss policy options. 

·The new Commission expert group on public health will advise the Commission on policy development and transfer of best practices related to major public health challenges. These challenges include non-communicable diseases and communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis, vaccination, and antimicrobial resistance. The aim is to promote coordination between Member States. 

·In 2015, the Commission launched the EU Health Award to recognise the work of NGOs in stopping Ebola. Since then, the awards have expanded to NGOs and educational institutions seeking to promote communication and health literacy on cancer prevention among children and young people, to those seeking to prevent and reduce obesity, and to community-based initiatives alleviating the mental health impacts of COVID-19. 

·The annual EU Road Safety Results Conference brings together Member State authorities, senior EU policymakers and the wider European road safety community to discuss progress made towards implementing Vision Zero (zero road deaths by 2050). 

·The EU Excellence in Road Safety Awards celebrate the achievements of specific and measurable actions by organisations aimed at improving road safety across Europe.

Multilevel approach 

SDG delivery implies ambitious action at all levels. Good practices in implementing SDG 3 include the following.

At national level, Slovenia is implementing an e-care project to improve the quality of life, autonomy and safety of older people in their home environment. The E-Home Care project is co-financed by the EU under the European Social Fund and runs until September 2023, with funding available for up to 5 000 EU beneficiaries. Thanks to technological solutions, individuals can rely upon free telehealth and telecare services and receive faster intervention in the case of accidents and other events. 

At local level, an action by the city of Thessaloniki in Greece to implement SDG 3 is an EU-funded project dealing with the urban heat island effect and its impacts on human health, primarily human mortality. The project is developing a set of modelling systems for short-term prediction and for future projection, to define high-quality health warning systems related to heat. An online forecasting system and a mobile app are available for free to citizens and visitors. The network of dissemination includes the public health system, emergency services, civil protection, social services and GPs. 

EU external action

Global trends

The improvement in coverage and quality of health systems and services in the period 2010-2022 has resulted in a slow but steady improvement of most health indicators, with sub-Saharan Africa systematically performing less well than the average. However, much of this progress has been halted or reversed since the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, the EU and its Member States showed commitment to strive for equal access to vaccines and health technologies for partner countries, including improving manufacturing capacity and support to research. The latest 2022 UN report on SDGs underlined the pandemic’s devastating impact, with deaths directly attributed to COVID-19 of totalling 5.4 million people globally. But with nearly 15 million excess deaths during this period, the figure might actually be three times higher.

Internal/external coherence including policy coherence for development

The new EU Global Health Strategy launched in November 2022 guides global, regional and bilateral actions of the EU, its institutions and its Member States in supporting partner countries in a coordinated way. Using a Team Europe approach wherever feasible, it aims to design appropriate measures to regain lost ground and make substantial progress towards their respective national SDG targets on health. 

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) together with Member State national regulatory agencies and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and its Member State counterparts play a significant role in building capacity in partner countries. In this context, the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) focuses on neglected diseases affecting people living in partner countries and promotes scientific cooperation between European researchers and counterparts in developing countries with a strong focus on Africa.

The EU responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by supporting the establishment of ACT-A (Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator with COVAX as the vaccine-sharing structure) as a mechanism to promote global solidarity and justice. Throughout the pandemic, the EU was the world's first exporter of COVID-19 vaccines, having delivered more than 2.6 billion doses of finished vaccines to 168 countries outside the EU. The EU also supports national COVID-19 vaccination strategies in partner countries as well as the development of local pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity.

Additionally, global health funds and structures were directly supported at a large scale to support national efforts in partner countries around the world to strengthen their health systems to deliver needed services to safeguard people’s lives. Among the funds and structures were the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), the global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO). Translating the emergency measure ACT-A into a permanent solution to address Pandemic Preparedness and Response at a global level, the World Bank and the EU have together initiated the Pandemic Fund, which launched its first call for proposal to support countries in their national efforts to be better prepared for next global health threat. This will be complemented by a global platform to provide for Medical Counter Measures in times of future global health emergencies building on the experience gained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Furthermore, the EU has been at the forefront of the work of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a proposal by a group of WTO members to waive parts of the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) in response to the pandemic, the EU has actively engaged in formal and informal discussions to work on a compromise outcome to be agreed by consensus at the WTO. The EU has also advocated for a comprehensive approach in relation to trade and health, which included elements such as trade facilitating measures, improved transparency, restraint from export restrictions, and expanding production capacity. This resulted in a WTO joint response to the pandemic and preparedness for future pandemics. It included a decision that waives certain obligations of eligible WTO members in respect of the TRIPS Agreement, and which allows developing countries to authorise a company to manufacture and export COVID-19 vaccines in a fast and simplified manner without the consent of the patent owner. The objective is to enable partner countries to scale up their production capacity and supply vaccines to other countries in the region. It should also support the establishment of manufacturing hubs that rely on supply chains in multiple countries.

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

On the EU’s longer-term support, EU institutions reported to OECD commitments of EUR 4 billion in projects contributing to SDG 3 in 2021. The largest share of the EU contribution to SDG 3 is accounted for projects that target SDG 3 as the main SDG. These projects also contribute to other interlinked SDGs such as SDG 5, SDG 17, SDG 10 and SDG 9. Other SDGs also contribute to SDG 3 as a significant objective. The main contributors are SDG 1, SDG 6 and SDG 8. When taking into account also other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD) of the EU to SDG 3 amounted to EUR 5.2 billion in 2021. In terms of selected results of assistance 9 , from 2018 to 2021, 30 674 000 women of reproductive age were using modern contraception methods with EU support.

Collectively, the EU and those Member States that reported on SDGs to the OECD in 2021 contributed EUR 11.3 billion to SDG 3. At regional level, support to SDG 3 predominantly focuses on projects in Africa (33%), Asia (21%) and America (9%). EU and Member State financial support for SDG 3 also has a strong global component (30%). This global component is partly explained by EU and Member State contributions to global funds in the health sector.

The EU and Member States have contributed a total of EUR 22 billion to the five main global health funds. The largest of these funds is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) with a total EU contribution of over USD 17 billion. The GFATM does not only focus on the three illnesses, but it also includes components focused more broadly on strengthening health systems. 

Moreover, the EU's Member States are among the most important and reliable funders of the WHO. They have pushed for a more reliable funding of the WHO’s budget to make the WHO less dependent on short-term project funding or earmarked voluntary contributions. The EU has pursued for several years a project funded by multiple donors aimed at supporting the WHO’s crucial role at country level on strengthening health systems for universal health coverage, which is at the centre of SDG 3. Additionally, there are numerous EU projects responding to the local requirements of WHO country offices to address specific needs for a specific disease or systemic health challenge. 

The EU and several Member States are also among the main contributors to the UN Road Safety Fund, which carries out strategic projects to increase road safety to lower death rates arising from road-related accidents. 

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement 

EU external policies in the field of health are guided by the World Health Organization’s concept of ‘health systems strengthening’. This fosters national ownership of health strategies by aiming to sustainably improve the quality, coverage and affordability of healthcare and to enhance health systems. The end goal is to provide equitable access to quality health services and products, thereby achieving universal health coverage. This is to be enabled by sufficient health financing policies and the development of comprehensive health strategies in partner countries, with a focus on: 

·investments in both infrastructure and the health workforce; 

·the establishment of reliable health information systems; 

·access to essential medicines at an affordable price; and

·encouragement of government leadership and ownership of health sector policies that serve the needs of the people and lead the way to the various SDG 3 targets. 

The EU aims to promote and support a comprehensive and inter-sectoral approach to health, ranging from research and development of new health technologies, and taking action against global health related threats such as air pollution, antimicrobial resistance and climate change, to the continued fight against the spread of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS at country level, or enhancing road safety efforts. Given the inter-linkages that these varying forms of support imply, the EU and Member States support partner countries in pursuing a ‘health in all policies’ approach. 

Health is also a priority focus of the EU’s humanitarian assistance, to limit preventable excess mortality, permanent disability and diseases associated with natural or man-made humanitarian crises. In fragile and heavily disrupted systems, humanitarian health funding contributes to the provision of primary healthcare, vaccinations, access to medicines and medical devices. An emergency health response to outbreaks and building national capacities for preparedness are important to cope with increased recurrence of epidemics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a key humanitarian contribution was providing vaccines in the ‘last mile’, an initiative led by Germany and the G7. Mental health and psychosocial support are an integral part of humanitarian health assistance in cases of sexual violence, mental disorders, trauma and high distress.

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

In Africa, the EU and Member States have launched three regional Team Europe Initiatives on health as part of the Africa-Europe Investment Package supporting the roll-out of the Global Gateway strategy, with a combined commitment of EUR 400 million over 2021-2027. Firstly, the Team Europe Initiative on Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines and Health Technologies (MAV+) in Africa, launched at the EU-AU Summit in February 2022, focuses on promoting the development of an African pharmaceutical industry and its integration into the global pharmaceutical supply chain. This will lead to enhanced future pandemic preparedness and the continent’s increased self-sufficiency with regard to medicinal products.

Secondly, a regional programme on Health System Strengthening combines three different Team Europe Initiatives: (i) on sustainable health security using a One Health approach; (ii) on digital health for health systems strengthening and universal health coverage; and (iii) on African-based public health capacity through support to public health institutions. The third regional Team Europe Initiative relates to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, which are being taken further within the framework laid down in the 2017 European Consensus on Development 10 . The combined allocated budget for these three regional programmes during the budget cycle 2021–2027 is EUR 400 million.

EU bilateral support related to SDG 3 focuses on achieving universal health coverage through measures to strengthen health systems with a particular emphasis on primary healthcare services currently reaching the poor and vulnerable in the 28 partner countries. To this end, the EU’s multiannual financial framework for 2021–2027 commits EUR 1 billion for actions in partner countries. This is complemented by commitments for global actions over the same time period of EUR 1.2 billion with contributions to GFATM, GAVI, WHO and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Another example of EU support is the EU financial contribution to the WHO initiative, Health Security in Türkyie, which aims at strengthening health security through integrated preparedness and response to epidemic threats of all origins in line with the International Health Regulations core capacities. The EU is also providing direct support to improve road safety in Africa at various levels, from local to continental, with actions such as data collection and management, traffic police training and post-crash care. 

To help partner countries address urgent and longer-term needs linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, support to health increased substantially in 2020. The EU, Member States and European financing institutions, in a Team Europe approach, swiftly responded to the pandemic and committed EUR 46 billion, of which over EUR 5 billion was provided to the COVAX Facility to ensure fair and equitable access to safe COVID-19 vaccines for all, and over EUR 7 billion to the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator. The EU’s support to the COVAX Facility ensured access to COVID-19 vaccines for low- and middle-income countries (250 million vaccine doses by the end of 2021, making the EU and Member States the largest donor in this regard by 2021) and contributed to achieving global vaccine equity by securing vaccines for the 92 poorest countries.

 As part of a common European response to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Eastern Partnership countries, the European Union Solidarity for Health Initiative aims to address short-term emergency needs, and the longer-term structural impacts; it has a special focus on the most vulnerable countries that have weak health systems. The initiative supports Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine and helps them to address better the needs of the most vulnerable people. Furthermore, the EU signed a state- and resilience-building contract with the government of Kosovo 11 . This focuses on the implementation of the fiscal measures set out in the government’s economic emergency package to increase resilience and mitigate the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis in society. 

Furthermore, also in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, several EU humanitarian air bridge operations took place in 2020. For instance, a total of 82.5 tonnes of life-saving material (personal protection gear, medicines, water purification equipment and family hygiene kits) was delivered to Venezuela to supply humanitarian partners in the field. More than 500 000 Venezuelans benefited from this aid, including children, women, and health professionals. In Ethiopia, the EU, with WHO and various emergency health agencies, has supported the response to COVID-19 and other outbreaks in conflict settings by ensuring access for operational agencies to vaccine pipelines, access for displaced and conflict-affected communities to public health campaigns, and the coordination of a common quality and timely response among emergency health actors.

In 2022, with its of humanitarian aid, the EU supported Afghanistan’s health and nutrition sector to provide primary and secondary health. Since September 2021, the EU has delivered 840 tonnes of life-saving medical equipment through a dedicated humanitarian air bridge to Afghanistan, supporting the humanitarian operations of more than 15 partners (NGOs, UN agencies and international organisations) and reaching approximately 16.3 million beneficiaries in the country. In Chile, the EU has been providing emergency health services to refugees from Venezuela and other countries, providing life-saving/basic medical treatment and information on possibilities for further treatment and follow-up on more complicated medical issues at destination.

Actions by the EU and its Member States are mutually supportive and are coordinated to ensure complementarity and a positive impact in support of the SDGs. In addition to acting together with the EU through joint programming and Team Europe Initiatives, Member States carry out their own projects in support of the 2030 Agenda including SDG 3, such as the following illustrative initiatives.  

Malta has contributed to the efforts to curb the COVID-19 pandemic by sharing more than 700 000 vaccines with countries in need, including Libya, Egypt, Rwanda, Ghana, Iran, Antigua and Ivory Coast. In addition, Malta supported Ghana, doctors were trained and the capacity of the local hospital in Kumasi was increased.

France’s bilateral support to the health sector aims to fuel a virtuous circle for the achievement of various interlinked SDGs emphasising basic education, including comprehensive sexuality education, and the empowerment of girls and women; as well as to fight inequalities, improve care for older people, and mitigate the impact of urbanisation, pollution, and climate change on the health of populations. Among others, the French Muskoka Fund (FFM) implements high-impact interventions in nine countries in West and Central Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo). This joint programme aims to improve the health and well-being of women, newborns, children, adolescents, and youth and the rights of women and girls. France’s funding (more than EUR 150 million between 2010 and 2020, another EUR 50 million committed over 2021-2025) is part of France's overall action in favour of maternal and child health and sexual and reproductive health and rights, which amounts to EUR 400 million. 

Looking ahead 

Implementing SDG 3 will require unwavering effort. In this respect, the recently adopted EU Global Health Strategy aims to improve global health security and deliver better health for all in a changing world. The strategy aims to strengthen the EU’s leadership and reassert its responsibility for tackling key global challenges and health inequalities.

Tools and legislation are in place, like Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, that will help build a more secure, better-prepared and more resilient EU. It will not only help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer care and support structural improvements for a more sustainable cancer pathway, but will also help reach the WHO target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use by 2025 as compared with 2010. In 2023, a revision of the Tobacco Taxation Directive, an update of the Council Recommendation on smoke-free environments and a Council Recommendation on vaccine-preventable cancers are planned.

Healthier Together will also have long-reaching impact in the field of non-communicable diseases, particularly in the five key areas: health determinants; cardiovascular diseases; diabetes; chronic respiratory diseases; and mental health and neurological disorders. 

Other proposals are also being drafted, including those addressing shortages and supplies of affordable medicines and reducing the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals.

The Commission expects to table proposals to  revise EU pharmaceutical legislation  to ensure faster access to quality, safe, affordable and greener medicines in all Member States. It is also looking to revise legislation on medicines for rare diseases and paediatric care. It is also considering proposals for innovative approaches to research and public procurement for antimicrobials and their alternatives. 

In addition to reviewing existing work to make it more fit for purpose, the Commission will consider new areas of action, such as ways to promote participation in the European Public Health Week and studying the impact of legislation designed to create smoke-free environments.

The Commission has also announced its intention to present in 2023 a new comprehensive approach to mental health . This proposal responds to the Conference on the Future of Europe conclusions , which call for initiatives to improve the understanding of mental health issues and ways of addressing them. 

To help meet the SDG target 3.6 of halving road deaths by 2030, the Commission proposed to revise the EU’s rules on driving licenses and the rules for cross-border enforcement of road traffic offences in March 2023. The Commission is also planning to propose a revision of the EU’s roadworthiness rules. All of these initiatives are expected to help bring about a reduction in preventable deaths and injuries.

On the external dimension, the EU aims to improve global health security and deliver better health for all in a changing world. The EU will continue to take actions to accelerate the strengthening of partner countries’ health systems, thus contributing to achieving SDG 3 globally. The instrument NDICI - Global Europe  will support the implementation of a range of concrete planned actions, such as the regional Team Europe Initiatives on health in Africa, notably the Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, medicines & health technology products in Africa, which aims to deliver on the Global Gateway strategy.

SDG 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

EU internal action

Overview and challenges

A skilled and culturally literate workforce is key for a prosperous and inclusive economy. Quality and accessible education and training systems are the foundations for lifelong learning, employability, innovation and participation in society. Implementing the measures to achieve SDG 4 in the EU focuses on basic skills, early childhood education and care, early school leaving, tertiary education, adult learning and digital skills.

Developments on SDG 4 indicate that the EU made substantial progress on meeting most 2030 targets, boosting participation in early childhood education, reducing the share of early school leavers, and increasing tertiary educational attainment.

Progress in other areas is more mixed. Adult participation in learning and share of adults with at least basic digital skills has not improved since 2015. One in five young Europeans still lacks adequate reading, maths or science competences. Reducing educational inequalities remains a major concern for the EU. The share of low-achieving 15-year-olds increased between 2015 and 2018, undoing the improvements of the previous years. School closures disrupting many children’s and young people’s access to quality education during the COVID-19 pandemic increased the impact of the socio-economic background on the learning outcomes of disadvantaged children and young people, including those with a migrant or minority ethnic background.

Investing in skills will remain a crucial factor for ensuring that no one is left behind in the digital and green transition. The challenge remains to not only speed up progress towards achieving targets but also ensure that policies reach the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.

2030 SDG targets and trends at EU level

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 4 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards achieving the SDGs.

Key initiatives

The EU has a wide range of policies in place addressing or touching upon the different aspects of SDG 4 in different education and training phases and systems. Ensuring that everyone can access quality education, training and lifelong learning is a key objective of the European Pillar of Social Rights and its Action Plan . It sets out several targets in the area of education and skills.

European Commission President von der Leyen announced the ‘European Year of Skills’. The European Parliament and the Council agreed that it will last between 9 May 2023 and 8 May 2024.The European Skills Agenda launched in July 2020, is a five-year plan aiming to help individuals and businesses develop more and better skills and to put them to use by strengthening sustainable competitiveness.

A Council Resolution on a new European agenda for adult learning 2021–2030 , adopted in November 2021, highlights the need to significantly increase adult participation in formal, non-formal and informal learning.

The Council Resolution on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021-2030) , adopted in February 2021, is an umbrella initiative that helps EU Member States work together to build quality and inclusive education and training systems that people with disabilities can access. It embraces a future-looking, comprehensive and people-centred vision of education.

The Reinforced Youth Guarantee , adopted by the Council in October 2020, aims to ensure that all young people under 30 years of age receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, apprenticeship and traineeship within a period of 4 months of becoming unemployed or leaving education.

In the field of vocational education and training (VET), the Council adopted in March 2018 a Recommendation on a European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeship which aims to improve and further develop apprenticeships schemes in the Member States. Furthermore, the Council also adopted in November 2020 the Recommendation on VET for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience which defines key principles for ensuring that VET adapts swiftly to labour market needs and provides quality learning opportunities for young people and adults alike.

In June 2021, the Commission adopted a proposal for a Council recommendation on Pathways to School Success . This is a flagship initiative to boost the inclusive aspect of education by reducing low-achievement in basic skills and increasing secondary education attainment.

The Digital Education Action Plan (2021–2027) is a renewed EU policy initiative to help Member States adapt their education and training systems to the digital age sustainably and effectively. The plan is key to achieving the European Education Area’s vision and helps meet the goals of the European Pillar of Social Rights action plan and the ‘ 2030 Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade ’. 

The cultural dimension of sustainable development is being promoted under a range of EU policies and programmes to support societal change and lessen the effects of green and digital transitions. The EU’s actions in culture contribute to all dimensions of the SDGs, in line with the New European agenda for culture and the European framework for action on cultural heritage . EU policy harnesses the power of culture and cultural diversity for social cohesion and well-being by: i) promoting cultural participation, artists’ mobility and the protection of cultural heritage; ii) boosting jobs and growth in the cultural and creative sectors through arts and culture in education, promoting skills and innovation in culture; and iii) strengthening international cultural relations through culture to promote sustainable development and peace. The need to preserve and promote the intrinsic value of culture and of artistic expression is also highlighted in the guiding EU cultural policy documents.

The Council Recommendation on learning for the green transition and sustainable development from June 2022 calls for Member States to establish the ‘learning for the green transition and sustainable development’ as a priority area in education and training policies. This will ensure that learners of all ages acquire the knowledge to live more sustainably, get the skills needed in a changing labour market and take action for a sustainable future. The Commission also released the European sustainability competences framework (‘GreenComp ’) which sets out the skills and competences that all learners need to acquire for the green transition.

In April 2023, the Commission adopted two proposals for a Council Recommendation in the context of the European Year of Skills, with the aim to support Member States and the education and training sector in providing high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education and training to develop the digital skills of European citizens. 

In higher education, the 2022 European Strategy for Universities aims to empower universities to manage the impact of, and find solutions to, present and future challenges, including the green and digital transitions. It recognises that the higher education sector has a key role to play in helping societies manage the impact of climate change, live more sustainably and exercise socially responsible leadership.

Selected enablers

The Erasmus+ programme focuses on quality and inclusive education with over EUR 26 billion allocated for 2021-2027. Its projects contribute directly to achieving SDG 4 as well as other SDGs in the EU and abroad. Two compendia provide a valuable overview of supported projects that contribute to achieving the SDG in relation to inclusive education and citizenship.

As people age and are required to work longer, the European Social Fund Plus promotes the training, reskilling and upskilling of workers to prepare for the green, blue and digital transitions. The fund also recognises the need to improve structures, e.g. modernising the education system and creating stronger links between educational and training systems. The European Regional Development Fund and the Just Transition Fund also supports skills for smart specialisation and the upskilling / reskilling of workers and jobseekers in the context of a just transition.

The Digital Europe programme (DIGITAL) is the first EU financial instrument designed to bring digital technology to businesses and individuals. It focuses on building the EU strategic digital capacities and on facilitating the wide deployment of digital technologies.

The 2021-2027 Creative Europe programme, the only EU programme that targets the cultural and creative sectors, supports the EU’s commitment to achieving the SDGs, in particular as regards their cultural dimension, under all three programme strands.

The research programme Horizon Europe supports EU priorities in education and training. For instance, the ‘Emotion-Expressive Robot EmoSan’ project ( CybSPEED ) designed by the Institute of Robotics of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is capable of imitating the movements of the human head in order to improve the pedagogical rehabilitation of children with special educational needs.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility will advance large-scale investments and reforms in education that have the potential to improve the resilience of EU Member States’ education systems. For example, the Romanian national recovery and resilience plan aims to implement reforms to address various challenges across education levels. The plan envisages reducing early school leaving, building 110 kindergartens, training almost 20 000 staff in early childhood education and increasing the share of students taking higher technical education courses from 17% to 40%.

Another example is the project ‘Promoting inclusive education: addressing challenges in legislation, educational policy and practice’ in Greece supported by the Structural Reform Support Programme under the call for 2019. Greece needed assistance in developing the framework and guidelines, and in training staff connected to the new law introducing inclusive education practices. The provider helped the Greek Ministry of Education design and implement several provisions of the existing legislation as well of the Strategic Plan for the Equitable Access of Students with Disabilities to Education.

Stakeholder engagement

The EU delivers on SDG 4 in a collaborative approach through various stakeholder platforms such as those mentioned in the following list.

·The  Education for Climate Coalition  – a community for students, teachers and other stakeholders to develop innovative solutions for environmental sustainability. It encompasses art and science, taking stock of good practice and citizen science endeavours. It promotes community building along language lines, and helps run events, from small-scale workshops to big policy and practice forums.

·The European Education Area working group on learning for sustainability brings together experts from ministries of education, social partners, NGOs and international organisations working on ESD, sustainability and environmental education. The group works together on topics of common interest (eg teacher training, curriculum development, youth engagement) and regularly publishes key policies messages.

·The Learning Lab on Investing in Quality Education and Training promotes evaluation practices to improve evidence and identify investment features for education policies for better learning outcomes and equity. It helps Member States make the most of public resources invested in education.

· The Pact for skills  was launched in November 2020 as a shared engagement model for developing skills. Companies, workers, national, regional and local authorities, social partners, cross-industry and sectoral organisations, education and training providers, chambers of commerce and employment services are involved.

·    Since 2013, the European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA) unites governments and key stakeholders with the aim of strengthening the quality, supply and overall image of apprenticeships across Europe, while also promoting the mobility of apprentices. These aims are promoted through national commitments and voluntary pledges from stakeholders.

Multi-level approach

Achieving the SDGs implies ambitious action at all levels. Good practices from Member States in implementing SDG 4 include the following examples.

Czechia provides support to children with special education needs to improve their inclusion and development at school. This support includes providing teacher assistants and special aid professionals in schools, granting scholarships to students and promoting and adopting quality legislation.

Germany is committed to carrying out the necessary action that was put forward in the 2021 ‘Berlin Declaration on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)’, to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Germany is setting up several programmes in technical and vocational education and training, and promoting lifelong learning for ESD in municipalities across Germany. Innovative ESD practices are being highlighted with national ESD awards promoting a whole-institution approach as well as a national endowed ESD prize encouraging the spread of these innovative practices.

At local level, Finland’s six largest cities are committed to achieving SDG 4, as highlighted by the following examples. In Helsinki, schools are educating children on the environment and climate, providing knowledge on the circular economy and Agenda 2030. In Tampere, schools, up to secondary level, are offering subjects on eco-social consciousness and the relationship with nature. In Oulu, primary school teachers are active in sustainability education, including the organisation of an Agenda of Hope event focusing on education and sustainable development for children, young people, and education professionals.

EU external action

Global trends

Progress since 2015 to achieve SDG 4 has been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, with an estimated 147 million children unable to attend school in 2020 and 2021 14 .

Internal/external coherence, including policy coherence for development

Education is key to achieving several SDGs, including ending poverty (SDG 1), reducing inequality (SDG 10), promoting gender equality (SDG 5) and promoting skills for employment (SDG 8). Due to the scale of its investment in education, the EU is a leader in promoting global transformation for this goal, including in the preparation and follow up of the UN Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, and pursues external objectives consistent with its actions within the EU. Through intensified engagement as Team Europe with partners, the Global Gateway strategy and its dedicated regional investment packages strengthen the way SDG 4 is implemented. This covers inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all, and promoting learning mobility and the digital transition in and through education, as well as quality, equity, inclusion and gender equality in education.

In terms of coherence between internal and external actions, the European Education Area is a driver of reforms in partner countries ( EU and Western Balkans Innovation Agenda ), through the strengthened international dimension of Erasmus+ 2021-2027 with a budget of about EUR 2.2 billion from EU external cooperation instruments IPA III and NDICI 15 . In 2019, the EU was the top global destination for higher education, receiving 1.1 million students of the world’s total of 5.5 million. The European Education Area serves as a global standard for quality and excellence thanks to actions supported under Erasmus+, such as the with its Jean Monnet actions, the Partnerships for Excellence (centres for vocational excellence and Erasmus+ teacher academies), highlighting the attractiveness of European education and encouraging progress in accession countries.

Since 2015, Erasmus+ has also allowed for short-term mobility between EU and other countries for students, researchers, and staff who study in a foreign university for 3-12 months and obtain credits recognised as part of their degree at home. A grant for staff mobility is also possible for 5-60 days. Erasmus+ mobility with partner countries outside the EU involves the movement of 40 000 students and staff per year. Of the 10 top academic disciplines covered by Erasmus+ mobility partnerships with partner countries, 9 are relate directly with one or several SDGs. The top three are business, engineering and economics which are linked to SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth and SDG 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure. Women represent 54% of all participants. A key objective of Erasmus+ is to promote equity and inclusion by helping people from disadvantaged backgrounds and with special needs (over 400 participants from Asia and southern Mediterranean countries).

Erasmus+ also supports Capacity Building projects to improve the quality and relevance of higher education and of vocational education and training in EU partner countries worldwide, as well as high-level international joint masters degrees involving EU and non-EU higher education institutions.

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

In 2021, EU institutions reported to the OECD commitments for EUR 2.2 billion in projects helping to achieve SDG 4. The largest share of the EU’s contribution to SDG 4 involves projects that target SDG 4 as the main SDG. These projects also make a strong contribution to other linked SDGs such as SDG 5, SDG 10 and SDG 8. The pursuit of other SDGs also contributes to SDG 4 as a significant objective. The main contributors are projects targeting SDG 1, SDG 8 and SDG 16. When taking into account also other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD) of the EU to SDG 4 amounted to EUR 2.3 billion in 2021. In terms of selected results of its assistance, EU support helped 38 million students enrol in primary education and 8.2 million students enrol in secondary education in 2018-2021.

Collectively, the EU and those Member States that reported on SDGs to the OECD in 2021, contributed EUR 9.4 billion to achieving SDG 4. EU and Member States’ flows to SDG 4 in 2021 predominantly focused on projects in Africa (34%), Asia (32%) and other countries in Europe (16%).

Part of the EU and Member States support to SDG 4 has been channelled through global education funds such as the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait – a UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. Up until now, EU and Member States’ contributions to both of these funds have amounted to EUR 4.3 billion and account for 52% of all contributions received.

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement

Education is essential for eradicating poverty and achieving the SDGs, including by ensuring that no one is left behind by reducing barriers to accessing quality education, including for girls, the poorest children or children with disabilities, and building skills 16 . The EU commitment to quality education and vocational training is embedded in a common vision on education being an enabler for achieving all SDGs, contributing to breaking intergenerational transmission of inequalities and promoting equitable, inclusive, greener and more digital societies.

In the face of the current global learning crisis and in line with partner countries’ own policies and plans for developing education, the EU’s priorities in the field of development cooperation are:

·teachers: focus on well-trained and motivated teachers;

·equality in education: education is one of the most effective ways to tackle increasing inequalities by focusing on inclusion, gender equality and digital innovation;

·skills for life and work.

The EU’s partnerships in education promote education on all levels, by focusing on marginalised and vulnerable people. The EU is also working on improving health, nutrition and social protection.

The EU actions under the NDICI – Global Europe instrument aim to contribute with at least 20% of the official development assistance (ODA) funded under the instrument to social inclusion and human development, which includes education. The share of investment to education will increase from 7% to at least 10% of the EU’s budget for international partnerships. The EU and its Member States in a Team Europe approach provide over half of the ODA allocated to education. The EU was particularly vocal on education partnerships and financing at the UN Transforming Education Summit in September 2022.

Education is one of the five investment priority sectors of the EU’s Global Gateway strategy and the Africa-Europe Global Gateway Investment Package. Several major regional education initiatives contributing to achieving various SDGs (including SDG 4) have been launched, such as: i) the Regional Teacher Programme for Africa, which aims at strengthening regional and national capacity to support teachers and the teaching profession; ii) opportunity-driven skills and VET in Africa, a Team Europe initiative seeking to achieve systemic and sustainable change in developing skills for employment creation; and iii) Youth Mobility for Africa, which is aimed at greater international and intra-regional mobility, increasing young people’s skills and employability, as well as youth leadership. The economic and investment plans in the European Neighbourhood and Western Balkans also help develop people’s skills and potential, including through promoting high-quality education and training.

The EU and its Member States are major contributors to global education initiatives, such as the Global Partnership for Education (where EU and Member States’ funding represents 51% of the total), which aims to empower young girls and vulnerable groups through education. It focuses on providing good quality basic education and aims to transform education systems. The EU supports Africa with an integrated continental approach to transformative education and training systems. The EU also supports Education Cannot Wait (EU and Member States fund 41.6% of total spending) and the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report to strengthen national, regional and global accountability for education results.

The EU continues to be a strong advocate for the global approach for Education in Emergencies as part of its humanitarian assistance, also in the context of and as follow up to the UN Transforming Education Summit. Providing safe and quality education to the most vulnerable children affected by emergencies is a priority of EU humanitarian action, with the EU meeting its funding target of 10% of its initial humanitarian aid budget being allocated to Education in Emergencies since 2019 (which increased from 1% in 2015). Over 2015-2021, the EU’s investment in education in emergencies-related activities enabled 12 million children and young people (50% of them girls) caught in crises to return to and stay in education through formal and non-formal pathways at primary and secondary levels. The EU also remains strongly focused on protecting education from attack and supporting the roll-out of the Safe Schools Declaration.

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

In relation to SDG 4, with the COVID-19 pandemic, EU changed the focus of its education support programmes to provide emergency funding and ensure over 355 million children in 66 countries were able to continue their education. The EU strengthened its collaboration with global education funds, announcing EUR 700 million in support for the Global Partnership for Education and furthermore supported Education Cannot Wait. It actively contributed, in a Team Europe approach, to the reform of the Global Education Coordination Mechanism to ensure a joint, coherent and efficient global education aid structure in support of SDGs 4, 5 and 10.

Over 40 Team Europe initiatives with education and training components are being developed at country and regional level worldwide. In Niger, the Team Europe initiative #nigergenerationsfutures – Emergence d’une économie inclusive et verte pour et avec les jeunes supports a green and inclusive economy, offering young people and women opportunities to develop their skills. In Kenya, the Team Europe initiative on Human Centred Digitalisation will draw on the potential of digitalisation to create jobs, especially for young people. It will work on reducing the digital gap through e-education services. Another initiative following the Team Europe approach, is the E-Youth project in Mozambique, which is aimed at unleashing the full potential of Mozambique’s young people through decisive action across public, social and private sectors to address education, employment and empowerment. In Haiti, the Team Europe Initiative ‘Haiti: Invest in the future’ will focus on further improving the governance of the education system (access, quality, higher education through partnerships with European institutions, VET reforms). All the above-mentioned Team Europe Initiatives support the Global Gateway strategy and, for African countries, the Africa-Europe Investment Package.

The EU helps partner countries such as Sierra Leone, Nepal or Lebanon lessen the impact of the pandemic in order to reopen schools and ensure a safe return for staff and students, recover lost learning and transform education systems that ensure equitable access to education for all. In Lebanon, 90 175 children were reached, including those with disabilities. In Tajikistan, the EU supported the reform of continuous professional development for teachers, the piloting of the first ever national learning assessment in several grades and the finalisation of the reform towards a competency-based approach, resulting in over 63 000 teachers being trained and 72 school laboratories being set up. In Cambodia, following protracted school closures, the EU budget support for education and the Capacity Building Partnership Fund, managed by UNICEF, prioritised actions on inequalities by offering scholarships for up to 250 000 students in basic education per year, increasing operating funds for schools, building 750 new, healthy and climate-resilient classrooms.

In Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, the Connecting Research and Education Communities project (EaPConnect) is now in its second phase, bringing together the research and education communities from the EU and Eastern Partner countries, reducing the digital divide. In Armenia, a programme addresses education as a key priority for reform, with EU support mainly focused on i) Vocational and Educational Training (VET), ii) higher education, particularly through the Erasmus+ programme, and iii) the EU TUMO Convergence Centre for Engineering and Applied Science. In Georgia, the EU uses the Skills4Jobs programme to address the country’s constraints in better matching skills with labour market demands and providing a better quality of skills.

Through its humanitarian action, the EU has supported the education of Syrian refugees and Internally Displaced Persons as well as host communities in Türkiye, Jordan and Lebanon. In Türkiye, the EU’s Conditional Cash Transfers for Education programme assists around 795 000 children, and EU humanitarian funding enabled 62 000 refugee children to be referred to education programmes. This helped to almost quadruple the overall enrolment rate of the refugee school-age population over 2014–2022. This led to the project being extended to include Afghan and Iraqi refugees and host communities and its scope being expanded to include early childhood, technical and vocational education, and activities to promote social cohesion and psychosocial well-being. In Jordan, the challenge of providing education to refugees was addressed through budget support (through the EU Trust Fund in response to the Syrian crisis, ‘Madad’). Measures implemented by UNICEF and local civil society organisations (CSOs) were funded to address the challenges of the vulnerable populations in question, and higher education scholarships were offered to Syrian refugees and vulnerable people in Jordan. In Lebanon, international and local NGOs provided support to refugees out of education as well as Lebanese children to get them back into learning and formal education. Refugees and vulnerable children also benefit from humanitarian programmes on Education-in-Emergencies, particularly in Ethiopia, Bangladesh, South Sudan, Türkiye, Central America and Mexico. Attention is focused on female participation (at least 50%) and often the support provided integrates child protection as well as back-to-school initiatives.

Furthermore, the EU has provided budget support to education and VET reforms in more than 20 countries over 2015-2021. For example, in Jordan, both education and VET have been supported since 2018 with projects and budget support to develop a workforce with skills, qualifications and capabilities. In Tunisia, support to education has also been long established and now aims to improve the sector’s governance and digitalisation, the quality and access to primary and secondary education as well as the matching of skills to labour market needs. Meanwhile, the construction and redevelopment of schools for greener and better-digitally connected buildings is co-financed and implemented with the EIB.

Actions by the EU and its Member States are mutually supportive and are coordinated to ensure complementarity and a positive impact in support of the SDGs. In addition to acting together with the EU through joint programming and Team Europe Initiatives, Member States carry out their own projects in support of the 2030 Agenda including SDG 4, such as the following illustrative initiatives.  

As the world’s largest bilateral donor in the area of education, Germany relies on close cooperation between government and businesses to assist partner countries in establishing high-quality, inclusive, practice-based vocational training systems reflecting the needs of the labour market – with projects currently undertaken in countries such as South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia.

Many Member States offer scholarships and specialised training, such as Latvia, which offers training programmes at its universities for young professionals working in public administration from countries in Central Asia and the Western Balkans.

Looking ahead

EU citizens have called on the EU and its Member States to establish by 2025 an inclusive European Education Area within which everyone has equal access to quality education and lifelong learning. Emphasis was given to the specific needs of young people being considered across all relevant policies in order to offer them the best possible conditions to study, work and start an independent life. EU citizens also expressed their wish that the EU ensures that everyone can benefit from digitalisation, by empowering them with the necessary digital skills and opportunities. The request for establishing the European Education Area was highlighted in Proposal 46 on education of the final report of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

The 2022 European Year of Youth has offered many opportunities for young Europeans to strengthen their skills and competences, and to increase their level of civic engagement. The 2023 European Year of Skills’ activities and events will also target young people, particularly those not in education, employment or training (NEET). With only 15% of young people having undertaken studies, training or apprenticeships in another EU country, the Commission will propose updating the current EU learning mobility framework to enable learners to move more easily between education systems: a key step towards a European Education Area for 2025.

With the European Year of Skills, the Commission also proposes giving a fresh impetus to lifelong learning. In particular, the Commission intends to promote increased, more effective and inclusive investment in training and upskilling to harness the full potential of the European workforce, and to support people in changing from one job to another. Further attention will also be paid to matching people's aspirations and skill sets with opportunities on the job market, especially for the green and digital transition and the economic recovery. To improve digital skills, the Commission intends to help raise awareness of the benefits of and opportunities for studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics including for women, and improve the way digital skills are taught in education and training. More generally, the Commission will promote upskilling and reskilling opportunities, for instance, by highlighting relevant EU initiatives, including funding possibilities, to support their take-up, implementation and delivery on the ground.

The upcoming Council Recommendation on social economy framework conditions will include recommendations on supporting social economy in reskilling disadvantaged and underrepresented groups.

On the external side, building on the 2022 Transforming Education Summit, the EU will help ensure the Summit outcomes are translated into tangible benefits at all levels. The EU will work on further promoting a coordinated approach on investments in education in partner countries, acting in a Team Europe approach so as to be a more effective driving force in the education sector at country, regional and global levels. It will continue to take determined action to help speed up the implementation of SDG 4 globally, including through rolling out a range of multiannual indicative programmes with partner countries where education is a shared priority. The EU will also continue stepping up coordination and improving the quality of the global response to education by strengthening a joint humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach, building on the 10% investment target for education in both humanitarian and development instruments.

A tangible contribution to achieving SDG 4 (and other linked SDGs) will be the deployment of the Global Gateway strategy at regional and national level, including the following initiatives presented during the 6th EU-Africa Summit in February 2022 as part of the Global Gateway Africa Europe Investment Package, to be carried out in a Team Europe approach:

-the Regional Teacher Programme, to support at continental, regional and national level effective policies and practices for innovation, equity as well as digital and green transformation in teaching;

-opportunity-driven skills and VET in Africa, to equip young people with the skills they need to succeed in the labour market (including digital skills for employment);

-Youth Mobility for Africa, to promote youth exchanges and mobility between Africa and Europe.

SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

EU internal action

Overview and challenges

Achieving gender equality is a major priority for the EU. It is a fundamental value enshrined in the Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The gendered impact of the COVID-19 crisis has continued. From the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, women’s rights organisations noted a significant increase in reported cases of violence against women. As regards progress towards a gender-equal economy, the long-standing challenges related to women’s participation in the labour market have continued. Women are still over-represented in lower paid sectors and occupations, and face constraints in professional choices linked to care responsibilities and gender stereotypes. The gender employment gap (10.6% in 2022) is mirrored in the gender pay gap (12.7% in 2021). The gender pension gap stands at 27.1%. With regard to gender balance in decision-making, women continue to be outnumbered by men in decision-making bodies in the political and economic spheres. Regarding women in politics, the proportion of seats in national parliaments held by women has decreased, from 33.1% in 2021 to 32.5% in 2022. Progress in improving female representation on corporate boards and in business leadership positions remains uneven across the EU but improved steadily in the reporting period. In 2022, around 32.2% of the board members of the EU’s largest publicly listed companies were women, compared to 22.2% in 2015.

Despite these challenges, the EU has made considerable progress on measures to achieve SDG 5 since 2015, with significant legislative and policy developments that have the potential to become game changers for gender equality.

2030 targets and trends at EU level

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 5 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs.

Key initiatives

The EU has a wide range of policies in place, covering different aspects of SDG 5. This section provides an overview of some of the most recent and relevant initiatives.

The 2020-2025 gender equality strategy sets the current framework for EU action to promote gender equality in the EU. The strategy is based on three main pillars: (1) freedom from gender-based violence and gender stereotypes; (2) thriving in a gender-equal economy; and (3) leading equally throughout society. The strategy takes a dual approach of gender mainstreaming combined with targeted measures and intersectionality as a cross-cutting principle supporting its implementation. A task force on equality was set up in 2019 to mainstream gender and other equality considerations into all EU policy areas. It includes representatives of all the Commission’s Directorates-General and the European External Action Service and supports the work of the first EU Commissioner for Equality.

The Commission aims to lead by example in the field of gender equality: the first female President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen leads the first gender-balanced College of Commissioners (2019-2024).

The proposal for a directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence adopted in March 2022 aims to improve the prevention of violence, increase protection of and support for victims and facilitate access to justice.

The Digital Services Act adopted in July 2022 will help to remove illegal content and protect women online.

The  pay transparency directive  adopted in April 2023 seeks to empower workers by providing concrete tools to claim their right to equal pay for equal work or work of equal value. The Directive will strengthen the application of the equal pay principle by giving employers greater responsibility for implementing this.

The directive on adequate minimum wages for workers adopted in October 2022 will help reduce the gender pay gap and increase gender equality, as women are almost twice as likely to earn the minimum wage as men.

In November 2022, the co-legislators agreed on the EU’s gender balance on corporate boards legislation . By 2026, large listed companies should aim to have at least 40% of their non-executive director positions or 33% of their non-executive and executive director positions held by members of the under-represented sex – for the time being, this refers overwhelmingly to women.

In September 2022, the Commission adopted the European care strategy to promote high quality, affordable and accessible care services across the EU and support Member States in improving the situation for care receivers and the people caring for them. This will help increase gender equality and promote women’s participation in the labour market. One of the strategy’s deliverables is a recommendation to revise the 2002 Barcelona targets. It aims to encourage Member States to increase participation in early childhood education and care to facilitate women participating in the labour market and improve the social and cognitive development of all children, but in particular children in vulnerable situations or from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Council adopted this recommendation in December 2022.

As of August 2022, the minimum standards for paternity, parental and carers' leave and rights set out in the Work-Life Balance Directive (adopted in 2019) had to be transposed by the Member States. These include the right to request flexible working arrangements, for example. The Commission is monitoring the implementation of the Directive in the Member States.

The Commission has also proposed to the Council to include hate speech and hate crime in the list of EU-wide crimes , which would allow the Commission to propose legislation criminalising all forms of hate speech and hate crime on all prohibited grounds of discrimination, including sex or gender.

While the gender equality strategy focuses on actions within the EU, it is consistent with the EU’s external policy on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Selected enablers

The Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) includes gender equality and mainstreaming as a specific objective. It promotes gender mainstreaming structurally under all its activities and it supports organisations and projects promoting gender equality by a dedicated biennial call for proposals. The latest edition of the call, in 2022, focused on (i) equal participation and representation of women and men in political and economic decision making and (ii) tackling gender stereotypes, including with accent on youth, and in advertising and the media, and awarded 21 national and transnational multi-beneficiary projects, financially supporting organisations in 21 EU Member States. Even though the projects have entered their implementation phase only recently, they are promising. As an example, the project “Rewriting the story: tackling media gender stereotypes in political and public life” will directly address barriers to the fair representation and portrayal of women and men in political life. Working with frontline journalists, news media managers, journalists’ unions and associations, gender experts, media self-regulatory bodies, women active in political life, academics and, crucially, the next generation of media professionals, the project will seek to initiate reforms in European media with regard to newsroom culture, policies and processes which improve the professional understanding and practices with regard to gender portrayal of women and men in political and public life.

In the 2021-2027 programming period more than 30% (EUR 111 billion) of all Cohesion policy funding under ERDF, ESF+, CF and JTF will support gender equality through direct measures or gender mainstreaming. 17

Gender mainstreaming is a cross-cutting principle of all Cohesion policy funds, including the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) , under which the Member States have an obligation to programme targeted actions to promote gender-balanced labour market participation, equal working conditions, and a better work-life balance.

The regulation creating the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) recognises women as one of the social groups that have been worst affected by the COVID-19 crisis. One of the RRF's central objectives is to mitigate the social and economic impact of that crisis, particularly in relation to women. In line with the regulation, EU Member States should mainstream and promote objectives relating to gender equality throughout the process of preparing and implementing their recovery and resilience plans. Additionally, the regulation emphasises the importance of investing in robust care infrastructure, which is essential to secure gender equality and the economic empowerment of women. It allows more women to take part in paid work and therefore has a positive effect on GDP.

Gender equality is one of the central principles of Horizon Europe - the EU’s key funding framework programme for research and innovation. When drafting project proposals, applicants must pay attention to gender equality from different angles in terms of human resources (balance between women and men in the research teams) and content (analysing and taking into account the gender dimensions of the content of the projects). Despite progress being made on gender equality in research and innovation under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, research and innovation organisations in the EU still need to better implement the EU’s gender equality objectives.

The proportion of women graduating in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, which are better paid and have better career prospects than many other disciplines, is persistently lower than that of men. The underrepresentation of women in physics, for instance, profoundly affects the growth and future of the field by contributing to a loss of potential talent and deprives industry of the intellectual contribution of women with a physics background. The thesis of a project financed under the Horizon Europe’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, “Physics departments’ culture, structure and gender inequality”, is that measures taken to increase representation will be effective only when they address the underlying hidden structures of the physics culture that contribute to gender inequality. The outcomes of this work will empower physics departments internationally to move beyond generic strategies and to implement tailored action plans to address gender imbalance by ongoing, collaborative self-reflection.

Another example of an EU-funded project on gender equality is the ‘reducing the employment gender gap in the Hungarian labour market’ project, supported by the Structural Reform Support programme under the call for 2019. A high and growing gender employment gap is persistently reported in Hungary, despite improvements in economic conditions. The employment rate is particularly low among women in the 25-39 age group who are raising children under the age of 3 years. The project aims to research and analyse the barriers to gender equality in employment and subsequent policy development through exchanges of best practice and stakeholder consultations that would help close the gender gap.

Stakeholder engagement

The EU has a dedicated agency for gender equality, the European Institute for Gender Equality ( EIGE ), located in Vilnius, Lithuania. EIGE works with EU, national, and international institutions and organisations to ensure EIGE’s gender equality expertise and resources have the maximum impact on EU policies. EIGE works to follow and understand the specific needs of its key stakeholders. 

For example, in October 2022, EIGE held its first Gender Equality Forum. The forum gathered high-level EU and national political decision-makers, practitioners and members of civil society to exchange views on the most pressing issues affecting progress in gender equality.

Open public consultations are instrumental during the preparation of major initiatives, such as the care strategy, to support the development of high-quality, achievable proposals by allowing interested parties to provide input and suggestions on the key challenges to be tackled by the initiative.

In July 2022, the Commission launched the EU Award for Gender Equality Champions , a new prize that recognises academic and research organisations that have achieved outstanding results in implementing gender equality measures.

Multi-level approach

SDG delivery implies ambitious action at all levels. Good practices in implementing SDG 5 include:

·Portugal launched its national strategy for equality and non-discrimination for 2018-2030, to promote women’s rights and eliminate discrimination. The strategy will be implemented through three action plans, focusing on: equality between women and men; preventing and combating violence against women and girls; and combating discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sexual characteristics.

·In Cyprus, to enforce the right to equal pay for the same work or work of equal value, a target of 300 inspections was set for 2021. These inspections are preventive, aiming to provide information to employers and employees on the applicable legislation and practical guidance for employers regarding compliance, but they also seek to identify cases of pay discrimination.

·At sub-national level, the La Rioja region in Spain adopted a specific law against gender-based violence. It promotes the inclusion of victims of gender-based violence in the labour market and set up a care network to ensure victims receive the care they need until they recover. The region works on education via a general communication campaign and training for specific audiences such as trade unions, and future professionals in the field of health, social services and education. La Rioja also created an inter-department responsible for integrating gender equality in all policies.

EU external action

Global trends

Instability, fragility, conflict, climate change, environmental degradation, migration, forced displacement and the COVID-19 pandemic all exacerbate gender inequality and threaten the progress that has been made. Deep-rooted inequalities persist, including in access to basic services, and gender-based violence remains widespread. Some legal frameworks continue to be discriminatory. Civil society organisations, including women’s rights organisations, are facing shrinking civil, civic and democratic spaces. However, women increasingly take part in shaping global transformations, showing that positive change is possible.

Internal/external coherence including policy coherence for development

EU external actions mainstream gender equality and women’s empowerment to pursue worldwide its own internal objectives, as illustrated in the context of trade. In the WTO, the EU has been a strong proponent of the 2017 Buenos Aires Joint Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment and is active in the WTO Informal Working Group on trade and gender. In 2022, the EU funded a project by the International Trade Centre that will help to apply a gender lens to the WTO’s work.

Trade and sustainable development chapters in EU bilateral trade agreements contain commitments to implementing fundamental ILO conventions on non-discrimination in employment. In June 2022, the EU concluded negotiations on a comprehensive trade agreement with New Zealand that includes, for the first time for the EU, a dedicated article within the trade and sustainable development chapter promoting gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, and a gender focus in the Parties’ trade and investment relationship. The modernised EU-Chile trade agreement includes a dedicated trade and gender equality chapter and was politically concluded in December 2022.

Under the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP), the EU monitors beneficiary countries’ respect of the principles of core international conventions, including those promoting women’s rights and gender equality. As one of its core values, the EU consistently promotes gender equality and women’s empowerment across its internal and external actions, including its international partnerships, using gender mainstreaming, targeted actions, or political and policy dialogues with partner countries. The Commission is implementing its gender action plan III 2021-2025 (GAP III), adopted in November 2020, which is aligned with internal action in the EU 2020-2025 gender equality strategy and sets its external priorities for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement

The five pillars around which the GAP III priorities are set are the following:

(I)Making engagement on gender equality more effective as a cross-cutting priority for EU external action, including the commitment to having 85% of new EU external actions contributing to SDG 5 by 2025 and to increase funding for gender-focused actions by requiring at least one such action per country.

(II)Promoting, together with EU Member States, strategic EU engagement at multilateral, regional and country level, including through country-level implementation plans, of which 129 have been developed so far.

(III)Focusing on key areas of engagement, including the elimination of gender-based violence, women’s economic empowerment, leadership and participation, and access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, taken further within the framework laid down in the European Consensus on Development 18  .

(IV)Leading by example, by establishing gender-responsive and gender-balanced leadership at top EU political and management levels.

(V)Reporting and communicating on results.

Among the initiatives with a particular focus on gender equality and combating violence, the Spotlight Initiative , launched in 2017, is a global, multi-year initiative by the EU and the UN to tackle violence and discrimination perpetrated against women and girls. By 2019, 90% of the EU’s initial funding of EUR 500 million had been allocated and 12 countries had started implementing Spotlight programmes, most of them as part of the Spotlight Initiative Africa regional programme (SIARP). When the COVID-19 crisis hit the world in March 2020, the Spotlight Initiative was able in the first 6 months to boost prevention measures, strengthen services for survivors of violence and address the acute needs of women and girls facing intersecting forms of discrimination. The EU also works with other partner organisations in countering gender-based violence.

The EU ensures that gender and age considerations are taken into account in all its humanitarian aid operations. To ensure an effective and quality response, humanitarian action caters for the differentiated needs and capacities of women, girls, men and boys, while supporting their active participation. Supporting the prevention and response to gender-based violence is a priority. In 2022, the EU funded targeted humanitarian actions to prevent and respond to gender-based violence with approximately EUR 41.2 million. In addition, the EU continues to support the global initiative “Call to Action on the Protection from Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies”, a global, cross-stakeholder initiative with more than 100 members, which aims to drive structural change in the humanitarian system to address gender-based violence. In addition, EUR 23.5 million went to targeted sexual and reproductive health services. In April 2023, the EU published its latest assessment report on its gender-age marker, showcasing that, for projects starting in 2021, 96% of all EU humanitarian aid 'strongly’ or 'to a certain extent' integrated gender and age considerations.

The principle of empowering women to boost prosperity is also at the heart of the gender strategy adopted in 2016 by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The EIB’s policy of ‘protect, impact, invest’ embeds gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in all its activities both inside and outside the EU.

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

There are two main sources of information to track support for SDG 5 and gender equality. As for all SDGs, EU support for SDG 5 can be estimated where this specific SDG field is highlighted in projects reported to the OECD-DAC. In addition, the tagging of the OECD policy marker on gender equality identifies actions that contribute to gender equality as a policy objective, which provides useful information in relation to SDG 5. The assessments made in preparing this review indicate that there is scope to increase the consistency between these complementary and related reporting tracks.

In 2021, EU institutions reported to OECD commitments of EUR 5.4 billion in projects contributing to SDG 5. The largest share of the EU contribution was made by projects focusing on SDG 5 as a significant objective, clearly underlining the cross-cutting nature of SDG 5. This SDG has been mostly associated with interventions where the main SDG was SDG 16, SDG 8, SDG 13 and SDG 4. A smaller share of the EU contribution comes from projects that focus on SDG 5 as the main SDG, where it is closely interlinked with other SDGs such as SDG 16, SDG 3, SDG 4 and SDG 6. When taking into account also other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD) of the EU to SDG 5 amounted to EUR 5.9 billion in 2021.

For EU institutions, the data on the OECD-DAC gender equality policy marker for 2021 shows that overall, the number of gender-responsive (marked G1 using the OECD-DAC gender equality policy marker) and gender-targeted (marked G2) actions amount to 70 %. In total, EUR 9 263 million were committed to actions marked G1 and G2. In 2021, 4% of new actions amounting to EUR 243 million targeted specifically gender equality (market G2). Support for SDG 5 is projected to increase even further, with the commitment in the 2021-2027 EU multiannual financial instrument NDICI-Global Europe to mainstream gender in at least 85% of all new actions, including 5% of actions with gender equality as a principal objective.

Collectively, the EU and the Member States that reported on SDGs to the OECD in 2021 contributed EUR 10.7 billion to SDG 5. EU and Member States flows to SDG 5 predominantly focused on projects in Africa (39%) and Asia (21%).

When it comes to the policy marker on gender equality, the EU and Member States reported EUR 36.8 billion to the OECD in projects with gender equality as a significant or principal objective in 2021. These projects account for 43% of new actions adopted in 2021.

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

Some of the key gender transformative actions recently adopted by the EU in support of SDG 5 include the ‘Breaking the Glass Ceiling’ programme in Tanzania, which aims to help increase freedom from all forms of gender-based violence in the public and private spheres, promote women’s economic empowerment, including to benefit from green and digital opportunities, and enhance equality in public participation, leadership and decision-making. The ‘Empower Women Prosperous Nepal’ programme is another example, and it particularly tackles negative social and gender norms, in order to support Nepal’s human development.

The Commission and 10 EU Member States are working with African partners to develop a regional Team Europe initiative (TEI) in sub-Saharan Africa to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights, taken further within the framework laid down in the 2017 European Consensus on Development 19 , with a particular focus on adolescent and young women. The promotion of the same theme by non-governmental organisations for vulnerable adolescents is also supported by the Commission focusing on promotion by non-governmental organisations for vulnerable adolescents in 16 African countries from 2022. The Commission is also a long-standing partner of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), including by providing support for the UNFPA Supplies Partnership.

In Ethiopia, careful gender and age disaggregation is ensured in all humanitarian response operations. Most nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, education and health protection actions focus on women and children. For example, particular focus is given to girls’ education. In South Sudan, through various partners, sexual and gender-based violence survivors are assisted both preventively and responsively, with health, psychosocial, legal and/or livelihood issues.

In the Western Balkans and Türkiye, since 2017 the EU funded programme “Ending Violence against Women in the Western Balkans and Türkiye” supports women and girls who are survivors of violence. The programme, which is implemented by UN Women, builds capacities and provides financial support to a wide network of women’s rights organisations and service providers, aiming at the prevention and protection of women, in accordance with the standards in the Istanbul Convention. More widely in the enlargement region, many countries have adopted or amended their relevant legislation with the aim of converging with the EU acquis and international standards on gender equality and anti-discrimination. Special gender equality bodies have been set up, and national strategies and action plans have been adopted. Collection and reporting of gender equality data has improved through cooperation with EIGE, which has led to the publication of the gender indexes reports in Serbia (2016, 2019, 2021), North Macedonia (2019), Albania (2020), Montenegro (2020) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (2022). 

Decent work and young women’s entrepreneurship have been supported by 21 EU funded actions in the framework of the European Training Foundation (ETF), to support change in Mediterranean and Eastern Partnership countries (including Armenia, Ukraine and in conflict-affected areas of Georgia). In 2020, over 6 million women throughout the world were supported, especially in public and private investment for women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion. In 2021, the EU launched its support for the economic empowerment of women in partner countries, in partnership with Germany and the Tony Elumelu Foundation, supporting 2 500 African women entrepreneurs. Thanks to EU support, new signatories to the Women’s empowerment principles (WEPs) increased to 500 new companies in Asia in 2020 (from 170 in 2019), and over 4 000 companies in Latin America (from 2 000 in 2017). This considerably improved gender-sensitive business culture and practices in the private sector, contributing to a level playing field for EU companies.

In the Neighbourhood East, the action for EU4Gender Equality ‘Challenging gender stereotypes and practices in the EaP countries ’ adopted in 2019, has funded a project in cooperation with UN Women and UNFPA aiming at strengthening equal rights and opportunities for women and men through shifting social perceptions, increasing men’s participation in caretaking and actions to prevent gender-based violence. Another project is working to increase the knowledge base and use of gender analysis in decision-making and reforms by governments and EU delegations to deliver effective and equal results for all.

In Morocco, the EU contributed to SDG 5 through budget support programmes and the provision of blended finance for an EBRD programme in support of women in business. 

Actions by the EU and its Member States are mutually supportive and are coordinated to ensure complementarity and a positive impact in support of the SDGs. In addition to acting together with the EU through joint programming and Team Europe Initiatives, Member States carry out their own projects in support of the 2030 Agenda including SDG 5, such as the following illustrative initiatives.  

By means of illustration, in Tanzania, Ireland funded and launched a ‘social institutions and gender index’, which is a dataset and reference point for formal and informal norms and practices around gender equality and discrimination. It also built the capacity of the national bureau of statistics to measure and understand these issues.

The Dutch SDG 5 Fund, for example, is one of the world’s largest funds for the promotion of equal rights for women and girls in all their diversity, gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights, with EUR 500 million to be allocated for strengthening local capacity building in the area of lobby and advocacy over the 2021-2025 period. It is complemented by gender diplomacy and gender mainstreaming and a feminist foreign policy.

Finland has supported long-term work to change structures, norms and attitudes that maintain gender inequality in Nepal. Since 2016, a project related to menstrual hygiene has produced long-term results. Girls and women, who had previously to sleep in a cattle shed during menstruation, without access to the water points in their communities, now freely use water points and toilets in households. Changes in societal attitudes have reduced discrimination and generational shame around menstruation.

Austria, via its development bank OeEB, has been providing long-term financing to the Kashf Foundation in Pakistan, whose funds are used to finance local micro and small enterprises owned by women. OeEB’s credit line has allowed the Kashf Foundation to open up to 155 further branches, thus reaching more women in a country with one of the highest gender gaps in the world.

Women’s rights are strongly defended by Estonia, including with its call during the COP26 conference in November 2021 for greater involvement of women in leading the fight against climate change. Estonia’s new Data for the Environment Alliance’ global initiative, which aims to make high-quality environmental data easily accessible for all those in need, also aims to reduce the gender gap considering the availability of information and technology.

Looking ahead

The Conference on the Future of Europe, in line with the objectives of SDG 5, showed broad support to the continued promotion of gender equality across the array of EU policies, ranging from digital literacy to sports, and emphasised the need to take a gendered perspective on policy assessment, data collection, monitoring and EU funding activities. Calling for inclusive labour markets, people stressed the need to address the gender pay gap, women’s representation in senior positions and support for women entrepreneurs in the business environment and women in STEM. Participants voiced support for the implementation and transparent monitoring of the EU gender equality strategy.

The EU is committed to implementing SDG 5 through implementing the 2020-2025 gender equality strategy . To this end, the Commission is currently negotiating with co-legislators on its proposal on combating violence against women and domestic violence  and implementing other key initiatives set out in the strategy.

The EU is committed to gender mainstreaming in all pending, planned and future initiatives. Implementing another core component of the gender equality strategy, the EU will continue to include a gender equality perspective in all areas of policymaking, including through the Commission’s task force on equality. For example, EIGE will support the EU’s policy work with research into gender issues in relation to the European Green Deal. The resulting data will be made available in EIGE’s 2023 gender equality index and will be used to mainstream gender into the ‘Fit for 55’ package. Other examples of gender mainstreaming include the EU’s strategic framework on health and safety at work for 2021-2027 and the EU’s strategy on combating trafficking in human beings (2021-2025). Gender mainstreaming will also continue in the EU’s budget and funding programmes.

On the external side, the EU will continue to take action to accelerate the implementation of SDG5 globally. This includes through the roll-out of a range of multiannual indicative programmes where gender equality is a shared priority and through mainstreaming this priority across its actions. By 2025, there will be a commitment for at least one action in each country focusing on gender equality as a principal objective. A tangible contribution to SDG5 (and other interlinked SDGs) will be made by developing the Global Gateway strategy, taking a Team Europe approach, which will actively integrate gender equality. The EU will furthermore continue to mainstream gender and age considerations in its humanitarian actions and will continue to provide targeted funding to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in emergencies, and to ensure access to sexual and reproductive health services.

SDG 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

EU internal action

Overview and challenges

Clean water enables life on Earth, nature, human health, agriculture, energy, industry and transport. Good quality water should be available and affordable all year round for people and nature. Almost every EU household has access to safe drinking water and basic sanitary facilities, which constitutes a basic right recognised in the European Pillar of Social Rights. The quality of water services in the EU continues to improve. However, there are still differences in access to these services between and within Member States, especially between rural and urban areas to the detriment of rural residents and the poorest. The situation is still not ideal for some population groups 20 . Water quality in the EU is affected by pollution caused by industry, households and agriculture. Pollution and changes to the structure and flow of waterbodies affect the hydrological cycle and the sustainable reuse of water as well as marine ecosystems. The UN Water Conference has highlighted the interconnections between freshwaters, oceans and “green” water; the Commission is working on these links, not least on a future deliverable aimed at reporting on the actual status of EU’s freshwaters and seas based on the latest River Basin Management Plans and marine measures.

Although progress was made throughout the 1990s, little change has been observed in the past 10 years. This indicates that EU’s ground and surface waters have not yet reached good status. Efficient water use is also a growing concern due to climate change. Changing weather patterns cause more intense and frequent drought periods, lower water levels in summer and higher surface water temperatures. Besides the damage to ecosystems, droughts cause economic damage of up to EUR 9 billion a year. They cause lower crop yields and lower energy production. Water use efficiency has increased in Europe, but overall water availability is falling. Water stress is now on the rise in western and northern Europe as a direct consequence of climate change.

2030 targets and trends at EU level

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 6 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs.

Key initiatives

The EU has a wide range of legislation, strategies, policies, initiatives and tools in place to contribute to the implementation of SDG 6.

The Water Framework Directive  is the EU’s main legislation to prevent water pollution, ensure water is used and managed in a sustainable way, reduce water stress, and promote water resource efficiency.

The Drinking Water Directive aims at ensuring the quality and accessibility of drinking water. New requirements are now included to improve or maintain access to safe drinking water for all, particularly for vulnerable and marginalised groups, and to address leakages in water supply networks. A new Regulation on minimum requirements for water reuse for agricultural irrigation  entered into force in June 2020. The new rules will apply from June 2023.

The Directive concerning urban waste-water treatment regulates the collection and discharge of domestic and industrial urban waste waters. A proposal for a revised directive was adopted in October 2022, to address remaining sources of pollution nutrients, micropollutants, and stormwater overflows) and the energy footprint of the water treatment sector and to lay down obligations for Member States concerning access to sanitation. The directive was accompanied by a proposal for the  revision of the lists of surface water pollutants , which added several industrial chemicals, pesticides and pharmaceuticals and tightened standards for some of the listed pollutants.

The  Groundwater Directive  lays down quality standards and sets out measures to prevent or limit pollutants in groundwater. It sets quality criteria that take local characteristics into account and allows for further improvements to be made based on monitoring data and new scientific knowledge.

The zero pollution action plan launched in May 2021 sets out key measures to speed up water pollution reduction.

The  Bathing Water Directive  requires Members States to monitor and assess bathing water for at least two parameters of (faecal) bacteria.

Selected enablers

The LIFE programme is the EU’s funding instrument for the environment and climate action. It includes integrated projects implemented on a larger territorial scale, aimed to help implement EU legislation, including in the area of water. The LIFE programme is a significant supporter of innovation projects relevant to SDG 6. Since 2015, the LIFE programme has funded 94 projects in support of SDG 6 for a budget of EUR 231 million, including on wastewater treatment, water quality, river basin management and innovation.

The 2023-2027 common agricultural policy is built around 10 key objectives, one of which is efficient natural resource management. This objective aims to foster sustainable development and efficient management of natural resources, such as water, soil and air, including by reducing dependency on chemicals.

NextGenerationEU, with an investment plan of more than EUR 800 billion, contributes to protecting the natural environment and achieving SDG 6. This includes improving water quality in rivers and seas and reducing waste and plastic litter.

EU Cohesion policy funds provide major investments in biodiversity, nature, and green infrastructure. Almost EUR 13 billion of the 2021-2027 programmes will be invested in water services and improved wastewater collection and treatment. Cohesion policy will provide EUR 6 billion of support for waste prevention, recycling and reuse of municipal waste; also circular production and consumption practices; and improving resource efficiency. As a result, 16.4 million more people (3.7% of the EU’s population) will benefit from clean water supply.

The EU’s research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, dedicates EUR 1.15 billion of funding to projects related to SDG 6 in 2021-2024. Examples of projects recently launched include the ‘Partnership Water4All’ and ‘Green.BOOST’, which focus on the foundations to implement large-scale freshwater ecosystem restoration projects and investments. This can deliver sustainable e-flows, good status for surface and ground waters, better long-term water management, improved biodiversity and climate resilience. Another project is ‘Stars4Water’, which aims to improve the understanding of how climate change affects the availability of water resources and the vulnerabilities for ecosystems, society and economic sectors at river basin scale. The project team will work with seven river basin organisations through a co-creation and living lab approach (contributing to SDG target 6.5).

Another example of an enabler is the project ‘Analyses and action plan towards sustainable water services in Estonia’ supported by the Structural Reform Support Programme under the 2020 call. Due to a highly fragmented utility sector and the low population density, significant price increases would be required to maintain the existing infrastructure in Estonia. However, these increases would not be affordable for households. Moreover, Estonia lacks a sustainable funding strategy for the long-term operation and maintenance of its drinking water and wastewater treatment services. The project supports the preparation of a roadmap for the consolidation of the water utility sector. Consolidation is a prerequisite for a sustainable and socially acceptable financing strategy.

Stakeholder engagement

Stakeholders are closely involved in developing and implementing EU water policy.

The EU’s Water Framework Directive is being implemented through a ‘common implementation strategy’. This strategy brings together all relevant stakeholders in several thematic working groups. This results in guidance documents for implementation and exchanges on best practices. It also serves as a source of ideas for further policy innovation.

As pollution has no borders and cooperation between different civil society actors is needed to tackle water pollution, the Zero Pollution Stakeholder Platform is also useful.

Multi-level approach

SDG delivery implies ambitious action at all levels. Good practices in implementing SDG 6 include the following.

·Building on the successive Water Summits held in Budapest before and after the adoption of the SDGs, the revised Hungarian national water strategy aims to fully implement SDG 6, together with EU legislation, with a set of specific objectives to be attained by 2030, including on water management, quality, efficiency and governance.

·The city of Veliki Preslav in Bulgaria used SDG 6 targets to tackle local water supply challenges. This guided the city in planning their water management process – from bringing water to residential areas to implementing wastewater treatment solutions. Now the city can provide the necessary amount of drinking water to several villages through the recently completed main water pipeline. Abandoned water sources (shaft wells) have been restored and can be used as alternative sources of water.

·In France, the Seine-et-Marne department has made a concerted approach since 2006 to develop a departmental water plan. This approach has made it possible to obtain agreements on technical solutions, financing and associated action on all the relevant issues for Seine-et-Marne (drinking water supply, sanitation, aquatic environments, flood risks). Many players have been involved: the department, the Seine-Normandy Water Agency (AESN), the Regional Health Agency (ARS), the Association of Mayors of Seine-et-Marne, the Chamber of Agriculture for the Île-de-France region, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Seine-et-Marne, and 14 other partners.

EU external action

Global trends

The delay in progress on SDG 6 is alarming, in particular as increasing climate change effects will complicate challenges on water availability worldwide, with implications for peace, stability and displacement.

Access to water and sanitation is essential for human development and economic growth. However, access is under pressure due to rising global demand, combined with misuse, poor management, over-extraction of groundwater, contamination of freshwater supplies, and more variable weather patterns resulting from climate change. Although access to water and sanitation has continued to expand worldwide, most of the population living in Sub-Saharan Africa and least developed countries still have no access to basic facilities, increasing public health risks, especially for women, children and vulnerable groups.

Internal/external coherence including policy coherence for development

With implications across most SDGs, action on water and sanitation is an essential part of the EU’s policy mix. At the UN 2023 Water Conference in March 2023, which was the first of its kind since 1977 and played a crucial role for mobilising stakeholders and sectors to catalyse political momentum on water to progress towards achieving SDG 6, the EU highlighted the strategic and cross-sectoral importance of water and sanitation, and supported the new Water Action Agenda, including through a set of commitments. The EU supports the emphasis on the need to ensure a comprehensive approach on water-related challenges, including for achieving food and energy security and climate objectives, and the acknowledgement of the critical links between addressing water stress and environmental protection, biodiversity and ecosystem preservation.

In this context, the Council conclusions on Water Diplomacy  promote the use of water as a tool for peace, security and global stability, through which the EU aims to prevent conflicts and promote transboundary cooperation in regions where access to water is under threat, to ensure the effective and sustainable use and management of shared resources. The EU also joined the Transboundary Water Cooperation Coalition , spearheaded by UNECE, to promote transboundary cooperation on water. 

The human right to safe drinking water and sanitation and the role of water to maintain sustainable environmental, social, cultural and economic systems at global, regional and local levels are also promoted and protected by the EU, including in its external action. Considering its interlinkages with other SDGs, water can also help deliver on development priorities in different sectors, including food systems, health, energy and industry , and at different levels, from local to global.

EU water policy has a direct bearing on the quality of surrounding freshwater and marine water. For instance, the investment in wastewater treatment has reduced the concentrations of nutrients and other pollutants in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea considerably. The removal of barriers in rivers has improved the conditions for migrating fish. Integrated river basin management, particularly further to the Water Framework Directive, has been used as an example for river basins outside the EU.

EU space technologies play a crucial role in optimising processing operations for higher quality drinking water. Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation programme, in particular the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, systematically provides real-time information on the state of global inland waterbodies and their seasonal replenishment, lake and river water levels, temperature, turbidity and trophic state, including potential water availability from snow and ice cover. Better information and forecasts help many water managers adapt their strategies when dealing with water allocation, flood management, ecological status and industrial water use to mitigate the effects of climate change.

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

In 2021, EU institutions reported to OECD EUR 3 billion in commitments to projects contributing to SDG 6. The main share of the EU’s contribution is for projects that target SDG 6 as the main SDG. These projects also contribute to other interlinked SDGs, such as SDG 3, SDG 5 and SDG 11. SDG 13 and SDG 14. The EU also made a sizeable contribution to SDG 6 through projects targeting the SDG as a significant objective. The main contributors are SDG 1, SDG 8 and SDG 9. When taking into account also other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD) of the EU to SDG 6 amounted to EUR 6.3 billion in 2021. In terms of selected results of assistance 22 , the EU supported more than 17 million people with access to an improved drinking water resource and/or sanitation facility in 2018-2021.

Collectively, the EU and those Member States that reported on SDGs to the OECD in 2021 contributed EUR 5.8 billion to SDG 6. EU and Member State flows to SDG 6 in 2021 predominantly focused on projects in Africa (51%), Asia (20%) and other European countries (14%).

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement

The EU’s key priorities are to:

·support access to safe drinking water and sanitation, including ensuring timely and dignified access to sufficient and safe water and sanitation services for people caught in humanitarian crises;

·support the protection and restoration of freshwater ecosystems;

·support the protection and sustainable use of water resources, including by addressing pollution, water scarcity (e.g.., the circular economy) and the water-ecosystems-food-energy-climate nexus; 

·strengthen water governance, including transboundary water cooperation as a catalyst for peace and security, and global governance.

The EU policy approach to water is multidimensional. The EU has integrated support to water and sanitation in partner countries across several policies, and these interlinkages are explicit in many key EU policy documents, such as the gender action plan or the Farm to Fork strategy . In the new consensus on development , the EU and Member States have committed to increasing access to water, sanitation and hygiene services and promoting integrated water resource management, conservation of water resources, and improved water use efficiency and recycling. The EU has now made explicit its global commitments on water in the context of the UN 2023 Water Conference and the recently adopted Water Action Agenda.

These main policy orientations are developed through several leading global and regional initiatives. The Team Europe initiative (TEI) Transboundary Water Management in Africa launched at the EU-African Union Summit, will contribute to the 2030 Agenda, notably SDG 6, by supporting transboundary water management in Africa to support development and regional integration. This TEI supports the roll-out of the Global Gateway strategy. The EU (including the EIB) and seven EU Member States combine their efforts to contribute to policies and strategies (through improved knowledge, data and research), institutional capacities and frameworks, participatory processes and coordination for improved transboundary water management and key investments. A broad range of interlinked SDGs (in particular SDGs 2, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 16) will also be supported through this TEI.

Following the EU’s policy guidance, the EU has developed an integrated package to address some of the challenges affecting Central Asia by setting up a regional Team Europe Initiative for Central Asia on Water, Energy and Climate. This initiative’s measures have strong interlinkages between SDG 6, SDG 7 and SDG 15. The ultimate goal is to support the region’s transition towards a green economy, promoting food security, jobs, growth, and sustainable development, while maintaining climate neutrality and environmental sustainability. This TEI supports the roll-out of the Global Gateway strategy.

The economic and investment plan (EIP) in the Western Balkans, through its Green Agenda and its Flagship 7 on waste and wastewater management, contributes to the depollution of water in the region.

The EU plays an active role in framing, advocating and implementing a global agenda for access to basic humanitarian services on safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in humanitarian crises, in collaboration with the EU MS, international partners and local actors. Ensuring that these services are available to the most vulnerable is essential in humanitarian aid operations, in particular in acute and chronic crises (e.g., operations in South Sudan and in the Sahel zone). And special attention must be given to the needs of women and girls. WASH-related assistance also contributes to disaster risk reduction and disaster preparedness strategies by anticipating severe water scarcity crises, which have the potential to spark massive displacement (e.g., in Afghanistan). Adapted responses include water contingency planning, climate adaptation, groundwater level monitoring, and repairs and rehabilitation, including upgrading water systems.

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

In support of the implementation of SDG 6, water and sanitation are also among the priority investment sectors covered by the European Fund for Sustainable Development+ (EFSD+). Building on the EU’s special partnership with Cabo Verde, the Team Europe Initiative ‘To Green Cabo Verde’, delivered as part of the Global Gateway, will contribute to several SDGs (including 6, 7, 13, 2, 14). It will focus on investments (blending and guarantees under EFSD+), strengthening capacity through technical assistance and twinning, dialogue, cooperation and budget support. The measures will be based on four key green pillars: (i) green tourism and green jobs; (ii) sustainable energies; (iii) sustainable access to water and sanitation; and (iv) agriculture and the blue economy.

Similarly, in the Eastern Neighbourhood, the regional Team Europe initiative Water and Zero Pollution will continue supporting policy dialogue on water, including on water supply and sanitation, to refine national SDG 6 targets. In addition, innovative monitoring approaches are being deployed at the intersection of epidemiology and wastewater management. As a result, with Austria in the lead, the technical capacity for monitoring the SARS-CoV-2 virus in wastewater is being strengthened across the region (in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova).

The EU’s water operators partnerships  (EU-WOP) programme is a 4-year initiative, led by the UN-Habitat’s Global Water Operators’ Partnerships Alliance and funded by the EU. The EU-WOP programme supports partnerships among water operators in partner countries and helps utilities acquire and apply knowledge, establish new practices and implement improved approaches

Greece is leading cross-border cooperation on integrated water resource management between itself, Albania, North Macedonia and the EU. This cooperation focuses on the protection and sustainable development of the Prespa Park Area in the West Balkans and provides an institutional framework and joint activities to address the serious pressure on the lakes caused by climate change and biodiversity loss.

In the neighbourhood region, support relevant to SDG 6 is also being provided bilaterally. For example, the EU supports Georgia in its efforts on environmental sustainability and improved living conditions in rural areas by contributing to increased access to improved and sustainable water supply and wastewater treatment in the semi-urban and rural areas of the Adjara region. The project supports the creation of centralised and decentralised water and wastewater supply systems in all the villages and settlements of the region’s municipalities.

The EU provides safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene support through its humanitarian support through its humanitarian aid and Civil Protection Mechanism, with its main objective to save and preserve life and alleviate the suffering of populations facing severe environmental health risks and water insecurity in the context of anticipated, ongoing and recent humanitarian crises,, for example in Venezuela, South Sudan (focusing on the risk of waterborne diseases) and Ethiopia (focusing on ensuring access to drinking water and promoting hygiene and sanitation for displaced and host communities affected by crises).

Action by the EU and its Member States are mutually reinforcing and coordinated to ensure complementarity and impact in support of the SDGs. In addition to acting together with the EU through joint programming and Team Europe initiatives, Member States carry out their own projects in support of the 2030 Agenda, including SDG 6, such as the following initiatives. 

·Hungary contributes to achieving SDG 6 across the world. Examples include equipping schools in Ugandan refugee settlements with innovative drinking water systems, providing mobile purification systems to Kyrgyzstan, contributing to the reconstruction of Iraq’s water utility and irrigation systems, strengthening Ukraine’s flood management system, and supporting water management facilities in several Southeast Asian countries.

·To assist in tackling the challenges of drought and the increasing unpredictability of southwestern African water supplies (due to increased water consumption and climate change), experts from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency are working with South African authorities and Danish businesses by offering solutions with both knowledge and products. This collaboration on sustainable water supply focuses on five specific areas: groundwater, water wastage, water efficiency in industry, water sector financing, and research and innovation.

·Spain’s Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation has developed programmes for institutional strengthening, community development and promotion of water and sanitation services in 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is achieved through national strategies, hydrological plans, and updating legislation with the aim of supporting partner countries in the development of public policies and influencing the human right to water and sanitation. Action is focused on rural and peri-urban areas and aims to reduce poverty and inequality. Some of the regional administrations, such as Aragon, are also supporting SDG 6. This includes working in Guatemala and Nicaragua to provide families with household water systems and latrines and giving training on hygienic-sanitary habits and how to maintain sanitation infrastructures.

Looking ahead

Emerging challenges such as new pollutants and climate change require keeping EU water policy up to date. Implementation of existing legislation is also key to reaching the SDG targets.

Integrated water resources management, including through protecting, restoring and improving aquatic ecosystems and increasing the efficiency of water use in all sectors, is essential for economic development, health, food and energy security as well as climate objectives. The recent hot and dry European summers have underlined the need for Europe to become more water resilient to serve all legitimate water needs for health, nature and the economy, in a sustainable manner all year round. Restoring water availability will require efficient use of freshwater. This can be helped by applying volumetric pricing more widely, with appropriate social safeguards, setting water efficiency standards in agriculture and industry, and promoting the sustainable development of alternative water sources, such as wastewater reuse.

On the external side, the EU will continue to use water support initiatives as diplomatic and development tools. This will therefore contribute not only to SDG 6 but also deliver on many interlinked SDGs (including SDGs 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 7, 9, 11, 17) at different scales, from local to global. In particular, the EU will further strengthen its commitment to SDG 6 as follow up to the UN 2023 Water Conference in March 2023Water Action Agenda (WAA. The EU will contribute to the WAA with a set of EU commitments, including improving access to water and sanitation, supporting multilateralism on water with the UN at its core, and strengthening transboundary water cooperation. This commitment includes further developing several Team Europe initiatives on water, which have been launched at regional and national level and will contribute to rolling out the Global Gateway strategy, such as the ‘Water, Energy and Climate Change in Central Asia’ and the ‘Transboundary Water Management in Africa’, launched at the EU-AU Summit.

In its humanitarian work, the EU will continue to take action in the WASH sector, particularly with other sectors, such as health, nutrition and shelter. The approach to water supply in humanitarian situations must be closely aligned with development approaches to ensure sustainability. In addition, the minimum environmental requirements and recommendations for EU-funded humanitarian aid operations will be applied from 2023. These will promote sustainable access to water and limit water over-extraction and pollution of water sources from waste.

SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

EU internal action

Overview and challenges

Energy transition is at the heart of the European Green Deal. Since 2015, solid progress has been and continues to be made towards SDG 7. The share of renewable energy consumption rose from 17.5% in 2015 to almost 22.1% in 2020, exceeding the target of 20%. In 2021, the share of renewable energy fell slightly to 21.8%. Similarly, the EU was able to achieve its 2020 energy efficiency target of a 20% reduction in energy consumption compared to 2007. However, in 2021, energy consumption bounced back after the COVID-19 pandemic; additional long-term energy efficiency improvements seem necessary to ensure the EU meets its current 2030 target of increasing energy efficiency by at least 32.5% compared to 2007.

Despite notable progress, challenges remain as regards energy poverty, further exacerbated by the energy price crisis experienced in the EU. The EU has managed to lower the percentage of the population that was unable to keep their home sufficiently warm; nevertheless, over 34 million people experience some sort of energy poverty.

The unprovoked Russian military aggression on Ukraine of February 2022 has reinforced the sense of urgency for the EU to ensure its energy security and end its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, while tackling the ongoing climate crisis. The EU’s response to this crisis – especially through the REPowerEU plan - has already had an impact on energy supply, by diversifying energy imports, increasing the share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption, and increasing energy saving and efficiency efforts.

2030 targets and trends at EU level

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 7 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs. 

Key initiatives

The EU has a wide range of legislation, strategies, policies, initiatives and tools in place to contribute to the implementation of SDG 7.

Energy Union : Adopted in 2015, the Energy Union strategy aimed to set an overarching EU framework to provide secure, affordable and clean energy for EU citizens and businesses. The seventh report on the state of the energy union , published in October 2022, highlighted the challenges that the energy sector faced in the previous 12 months. It took stock of the EU’s energy policy response to the current energy crisis and provided an analysis of the progress made in addressing both shorter-term issues and the EU’s long-term energy and climate goals.

Adopted in 2019, this package of eight laws aims to decarbonise the EU’s energy system. It introduced 2030 targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency, set up the governance system for the Energy Union and rules for the energy poverty monitoring and prevention of energy poverty. Member States were required to establish a 10-year national energy and climate plan (NECP) covering the period 2021 to 2030, set their contribution to the EU’s 2030 energy and climate targets, and set out a strategy, policies and measures to achieve them. In 2023, Member States will submit to the Commission their first progress reports and update their national energy and climate plans in order to reflect the rapidly evolving geopolitical context and the EU’s higher ambition in terms of decarbonisation, which have resulted in a significant changes to the EU’s energy and climate policy..

The European Green Deal package: This included amendments to nearly all the legislation under the clean energy for all Europeans package, notably reinforcing the provisions and the EU’s ambition on renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy performance of buildings. It also put forward measures to set up a new decarbonised gas and hydrogen framework and a proposal to reduce methane emissions in the energy sector. The package is now at the final stages of negotiations between the co-legislators and should enter into force soon.

The REPowerEU Plan , launched in May 2022, sets out short- and long-term measures to phase out the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels from Russia. These measures include diversification of supply, energy savings and efficiency, and an acceleration of renewable energy capacity. With the REPowerEU plan, the Commission proposed to raise the 2030 renewable energy targets from 40% and 45%. In March 2023 negotiations among EU co-legislators ended with an agreement to increase the target to at least 42.5% in 2030 with the aim to reach 45%. It is also accompanied by a recommendation to speed up permitting for major renewable energy projects and a targeted amendment to the Renewable Energy Directive introducing dedicated go-to areas for renewables and recognising renewable energy sources as an overriding public interest.

Beyond accelerating the deployment of renewables, the Commission also proposed to raise the EU’s 2030 energy efficiency target from 9% to 13%. Negotiations among EU co-legislators ended in March 2023 with an agreement for an energy efficiency target of 11.7% in 2030 compared to 2020 scenario. Emphasising the principle of energy efficiency first is crucial both in achieving the clean energy transition and in phasing out our dependence on Russian fossil fuels.

Furthermore, in March 2023, the Commission published a proposal for the reform of the Electricity Market Design which has three main aims. The reform will make the energy bills of EU consumers and companies more independent from the short-term market price of electricity (very often driven by volatile fossil fuel costs). It will enable an accelerated deployment of renewables and the phase out of gas by facilitating further the integration of renewables in the electricity system, providing stable revenues for investors in renewable and low-carbon energy and improving conditions for the use of flexibility solutions such as demand response, and storage. Crucially, it also aims to improve consumer protection and further empower consumers. The Commission also proposed amendments to the Regulation on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (REMIT) to provide better protection against market manipulation and abuse and enhance the transparency of the market.

As part of the REPowerEU plan, the Commission also proposed a number of amendments to the cohesion policy framework. This will enable Member States to use unspent funds under their 2014-2020 allocation to provide direct support to vulnerable families and small and medium-sized businesses to help them face increased energy costs (i.e. SAFE - Supporting Affordable Energy). This is a great opportunity for Member States to commit to investments and reforms pertaining to the acceleration of renewable energy projects permitting.

Projects of common interest (PCI): Through the Trans-European Networks for Energy linking the energy systems of EU countries, energy projects of common interest can benefit from accelerated permitting procedures and up to EUR 5.84 billion in funding from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), a financing instrument of EUR 33.71 billion (2021-2027) to support investments in EU infrastructure networks. CEF Energy is financing the better interconnection of energy networks to develop a single EU energy market and to support the clean energy transition. Since 2014, CEF Energy has provided funding of EUR 5.7 billion to support 154 projects. In March 2022, the Commission launched the first CEF call for renewable energy cross-border projects. In May 2022, the Commission launched a new call for key cross-border energy infrastructure projects for projects included in the fifth EU list of projects of common interest.

Other EU policies also support the energy transition. The common agricultural policy contains objectives and measures that support farmers to produce renewable energy, such as biogas or inputs for bioethanol production.

The European Pillar of Social Rights lists energy among the essential services to which everyone should have access. In 2020, the Commission issued recommendations on energy poverty as part of the renovation wave , proposing actions for Member States to alleviate energy poverty . In July 2021, the Commission adopted the Fit for 55 package , which includes specific measures to identify key drivers of energy poverty risks. As part of the package, a dedicated Social Climate Fund has been agreed so to abate the social impacts of the green transition on vulnerable households, micro-enterprises and transport users. In April 2022, the Commission established the Energy Poverty and Vulnerable Consumers Coordination Group to help Member States in tackling energy poverty.

Selected enablers

The implementation of the REPowerEU plan will need additional investments of EUR 210 billion between now and 2027 to phase out Russian fossil fuel imports, on top of the financing needed to achieve the energy transition under the European Green Deal.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility is at the heart of the REPowerEU plan implementation, providing additional EU funding. This facility was developed in 2020 to mitigate the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic. To date, around EUR 108 billion in financing has been allocated to clean energy and energy efficiency measures.

Cohesion policy funds also provides significant support to energy efficiency improvements in buildings and housing, renewable energy and energy infrastructure outside the Trans-European Energy Network (smart energy systems, grids and storage). It therefore contributes to the achievement of a decarbonised building stock by 2050, thus reducing energy consumption and creating savings for households affected by energy poverty. For 2021-27 programmes and the Just Transition Fund, around EUR 47 billion of EU financing (leading to EUR 68 billion with national co-financing). Such investments will provide essential support to tackling the current energy crisis by boosting energy savings (particularly in buildings) and increasing energy security for the future via the further deployment of renewable energy production. Cohesion policy has already contributed EUR 28 billion of similar investment in 2014-2020.

The following instruments, among others, also support the energy transition and REPowerEU plan objectives.

·LIFE Clean Energy Transition (CET) - In May 2022, the LIFE call for proposals made available EUR 98 million for energy efficiency and clean energy projects. This call covers REPowerEU objectives, such as reduction in fossil fuel consumption for heating and accelerated deployment of energy efficiency solutions in housing, businesses and the public sector.

·The  Modernisation Fund  will contribute to the investment needs of the 10 lower-income EU countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. It supports investments in generation and use of energy from renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, energy storage, modernisation of energy networks, and the just transition in carbon-dependent regions. The total revenues of the fund may amount to some EUR 14 billion in 2021-2030, depending on the carbon price.

·Since 2011, the EIB-managed ELENA facility supports the development of energy efficiency and clean mobility projects. With a leverage factor of 33, it has an impressive capacity to attract private financing. In 2021, EUR 35.8 million was allocated to 18 new projects. These are expected to generate around 500 gigawatt hours of energy savings per year.

·The Social Climate Fund will help mitigate the costs of the energy transition for vulnerable households, microenterprises, and transport users. It will provide a total of EUR 65 billion over 7 years in funding for the renovation of buildings, access to zero and low-emission mobility, or even temporary direct income support.

·The public sector loan facility, the third pillar of the Just Transition Mechanism , is now operational. It supports regions most affected by the energy transition through grants and loans to accompany their economic conversion.

·In 2023, the first ever cross-border tender will take place under the renewable energy financing mechanism . The tender will focus on solar photovoltaic projects. The mechanism will help unlock the EU’s full renewable potential, and help Member States achieve the decarbonisation objective in a more cooperative manner.

The Horizon Europe programme allocated EUR 15 billion to support research and innovation in renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency, electrification of heating and cooling, and digitalisation of the energy system. For the energy performance of buildings, Horizon Europe is funding the following:

·the BUILD UP initiative , a portal for sharing knowledge on how to make buildings more energy-efficient; 

·the 4RinEU project, which aims to provide new tools and strategies to encourage large-scale renovation of existing buildings and to promote the use of renewable energies (see Home improvements for the planet ) and

·the EIT InnoEnergy, a Knowledge and Innovation Community, which brings together innovators and industry, entrepreneurs and investors in order to catalyse and accelerate the energy transition and build connections worldwide.

Another example is the project 'Facilitating renewable energy deployment in electricity sector of Slovenia', supported by the Technical Support Instrument under the 2021 call for proposals. Slovenia faces recurring difficulties to increase its share of energy from renewable sources. This affects the energy and climate transition as well as the economy as whole. The project aims to support the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning in addressing barriers to renewable energy deployment and strengthen related administrative capacity.

Stakeholder engagement

The EU delivers on SDG 7 in a collaborative approach, including through the following initiatives.

·The EU Sustainable Energy Week is the biggest event in the EU on renewables and energy efficiency, bringing together policymakers, industries and citizens.

·The  EU Energy Day gathers key clean energy players to promote and strengthen cooperation on sustainable, secure and smart energy solutions.

·The European Sustainable Energy Awards aim to highlight individuals and initiatives that are contributing to Europe’s clean and digital energy transition.

·The Energy Infrastructure Forum  aims to remove technical and regulatory barriers to energy flowing freely across the EU, and to discuss major issues relating to infrastructure and EU energy policy.

·The Clean Energy Industrial Forum develops recommendations on how to strengthen the industrial basis and the EU value chain for renewable energy technologies.

·The Citizens' Energy Forum  meets on an annual basis and aims to explore the consumer perspective and role in a competitive, smart, energy-efficient and fair energy retail market.

·In line with the European industrial strategy, launched in March 2020, aiming at supporting the twin transition to a green and digital economy, the EU is developing industrial alliances to accelerate the development of key projects that support the manufacturing of low-carbon energy technologies (batteries, hydrogen, etc.) and which will maintain the EU’s leadership in innovative and green technologies.

Multilevel approach

SDG delivery implies ambitious action at all levels. Good practices in implementing SDG 7 include the following.

Greece is implementing an ambitious plan to remove lignite from the country’s energy mix. This will facilitate the country’s transition to a differentiated mixture of electricity production and to complete decarbonisation by 2028. The plan underpins the objectives set by the first national roadmap for transition to net-zero approved by the Hellenic Parliament in 2022.

To reduce the environmental impact of households, the region of Nord-Vest in Romania, with EU co-financing, invested over EUR 80 million in the thermal rehabilitation of over 4 572 apartments in old residential towers and multistore condominium buildings. Most residents of these buildings have low socio-economic backgrounds. These investments enhanced residential well-being, social equality and offset 10 033.45 tonnes of CO2 equivalent annual emissions.

EU external action

Global trends

In the last 10 years access to electricity increased from 86.6% of the world’s population in 2015 to 90.5% in 2020, but regional disparities remain wide. In 2020 , 77% of those without access to electricity  or over 568 million people, lived in sub-Saharan Africa. High energy prices led nearly 90 million people in Asia and Africa who had previously gained access to electricity to no longer being able to pay for their basic energy needs.

The deployment of clean energy reached a record high in 2021 globally, but, due to rising commodity prices and supply-chain bottlenecks, this trend has been reversed in many countries, in particular on the African continent. Only 2% of global investments in renewable energy in the last two decades were made in Africa, with significant regional disparities.

Internal/external coherence including policy coherence for development

In May 2022, as part of the REPowerEU plan, the EU adopted a new external energy engagement strategy with three interlinked objectives: ensuring the EU’s energy security; providing support to partners that are impacted by Russia’s aggression to Ukraine; and pursuing the global clean energy transition. Consistent with its internal policies, the EU will make use of all existing instruments to continue providing support to partner countries, particularly in Africa and the EU’s neighbourhood, to help these countries to recover from multiple crisis, including in relation to energy, and to achieve an inclusive and sustainable growth. These are also the main objectives of the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package.

Under the European Green Deal, and to support the EU's commitment to climate neutrality by 2050, the EU adopted in October 2020 a strategy to reduce methane emissions in all key sectors covering energy, agriculture and waste. A legislative proposal on reducing methane emissions in the energy sector followed in 2021.The highest methane emissions occur during production and transport of fossil fuels produced outside the EU, thus international abatement efforts are a priority for the EU. At the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, together with the United States, the EU launched the Global Methane Pledge to gather international commitment to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030; 150 countries have now joined the pledge. .

Since 2015, the EU has been engaging with countries such as Japan and the USA, bilaterally and through multilateral fora such as the Clean Energy Mission or the International Partnership for a Hydrogen Economy (IPHE), to develop standards and uptake of a global hydrogen market. To increase renewable hydrogen imports by 10 million tonnes by 2030, the EU has started to establish renewable hydrogen partnerships (e.g. Namibia , Egypt , Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Japan) to support the development of renewable energy, engage countries in the decarbonisation of their industry and supply the EU market with renewable hydrogen or derivative fuels.

To succeed, the green transition must be just and socially fair. This means reducing the social and economic impact of phasing out fossil fuels and offering new opportunities via green technologies while tackling issues like energy access, fossil fuel subsidies, skills development and distributional effects of the transition. The EU is supporting partners (such as the Western Balkans and Ukraine) to engage in phasing out coal and is sharing its experience of how it has been accompanying coal regions in their economic transition. The EU’s experience will also contribute to the G7-led Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) signed with South Africa, Vietnam and Indonesia to accelerate the coal phase-out, while supporting vulnerable communities that depend on it and contributing to the roll-out of Global Gateway investment priorities.

As part of the Clean energy for all Europeans package, adopted in 2019, the EU strengthened the sustainability criteria of bioenergy, applying to bioenergy produced in the EU and imported. These criteria aim to reduce the competition of bioenergy production with agricultural land and with high carbon stock preventing indirect land use change (ILUC). The limits set in the revised Renewable Energy Directive on the volumes of high ILUC-risk bioenergy that can be counted towards the renewable target will gradually decrease to zero by 2030 and will lead to the sustainability of the global bioenergy market.

With regard to energy efficiency, the EU’s contribution also involves measures promoting sustainable product design and consumption, notably the Commission's proposal for an ecodesign regulation for sustainable products and the related legislative package on ‘making sustainable products the norm’. By setting common EU-wide minimum standards, the EU aims at reducing the negative environmental impacts of products along their value chains and increasing their energy and resource efficiency. The EU energy label has been a key contributor to the EU’s energy efficiency target and contributes to the greening of the global appliances market beyond the EU. 

In terms of volume, the EU is more or less self-sufficient in the material categories of biomass and non-metallic minerals, while it is a net importer of metal ores and fossil-energy materials.

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

In 2021, EU institutions reported to the OECD commitments for EUR 4.5 billion in projects contributing to SDG 7. The largest share of the EU contribution to SDG 7 is accounted for by projects that target SDG 7 as the main SDG. These projects also contribute to other interlinked SDGs, mainly SDG 5, SDG 9, SDG 13 and SDG 14. A smaller but sizeable contribution to SDG 7 is accounted for by projects targeting the SDG as a significant objective. The main contributors are projects targeting SDG 1, SDG 8 and SDG 13. When taking into account also other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD) of the EU to SDG 7 amounted to EUR 5.3 billion in 2021. In terms of selected results of assistance 23 , the EU support improved access to electricity for 29 million people and contributed to the installation of 91 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, resulting in 95.8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions being averted.

Collectively, the EU and those Member States that reported on SDGs to the OECD in 2021 contributed EUR 8 billion to SDG 7. EU and Member State funding to SDG 7 predominantly focused on projects in Africa (49%), Asia (21%) and other countries in Europe (16%).

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement

Promoting access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy is high on the EU’s development cooperation agenda. This work links strongly with SDG 13 on climate action, but also with a range of SDGs, such as SDG 4 on education because access to sustainable energy in schools improves the quality of, and accessibility to, education. Similarly, it has strong connections with SDG 5 on gender equality since access to sustainable energy is a precondition for the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Furthermore, it is connected to SDG 3 on health, particularly through electrification of health services, and SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth, SDG 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure, and SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities. 

Therefore, the EU and its Member States approach energy as a horizontal issue, strengthening the links between the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement. Special attention has been given to SDG 7 as an enabler for sustainable growth and human development. Due to the interconnectedness of energy issues and other SDGs, the EU and its Member States have used work across a range of SDGs to contribute to the objectives of improved access to energy, renewable energy generation, and energy efficiency, to achieve a sustainable balance between energy production and consumption while bolstering the fight against climate change. This has involved supporting political ownership, improved governance, and reform of the energy sector in partner countries, as well as promoting the use of digital technologies and boosting sustainable investment through innovative financing.

In this context and in line with partner countries’ own policies and plans for affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all, the EU priorities for its external actions contributing to SDG 7 and interlinked SDGs include:

·investing in sustainable energy infrastructure, including on renewable energy generation (including solar, wind, hydropower, sustainable biofuels), electricity transmission and distribution, and enhanced access to energy services;

·investing in capacity building and skills needed for the management of energy systems based on renewable energy, the development of energy communities, and for renewable energy value chains; and

·developing the global renewable hydrogen market to support the decarbonisation of heavy transport and industrial sectors.

Energy is an investment priority of the Global Gateway, which is taking these commitments a step further, including by promoting green technology exchanges and strengthening energy security. In the framework of the Africa-Europe Investment Package, the Africa-EU Green Energy Initiative (AEGEI), a Team Europe Initiative launched on the occasion of the EU-AU Summit in February 2022, contributes to the Global Gateway by supporting Africa’s green transition in the energy sector. It aims to increase electricity production and access to energy, promote energy efficiency, create a conducive regulatory environment for private investments, and advance market integration. The initiative is also aligned with and contributes to the African Union’s Agenda 2063 ambition to increase renewable energy generation capacity in Africa by 300 gigawatts by 2030 and to secure access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy. The total combined sustainable energy budget in support of this initiative is estimated at more than EUR 3.4 billion in grants for the period 2021-2027, which is expected to leverage more than EUR 20 billion in investment. Current initiatives include the EU support to the development of an African Single Electricity Market and the Continental Power System Masterplan, which aims to build and invest in energy infrastructure, including electricity interconnections and transmission lines and connect the five African power pools.

The EU is committed to leading and speeding up the global green transition and supporting its international partners in the process. This includes working together on renewable energy, energy efficiency and savings, the circular economy, green growth, natural resource protection, critical raw materials, clean technologies, and future-proof infrastructure. Energy security and green transition are supported in Ukraine, Moldova and the partner countries in its immediate neighbourhood, including by accelerating implementation of the Economic and Investment Plan. Boosting investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency and in phasing out coal are also core pillars of the Economic and Investment Plans for the EU’s neighbourhood, and of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans. 

Energy is also among the priority investment sectors covered by the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+), which is a financing tool of the Global Gateway and the financing arm of the EU's Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) - Global Europe and the Instrument for Pre-Adhesion III (IPA III). It de-risks investments with budgetary guarantees and thus attracts more private investment into emerging and developing country markets, and in this way supports the transformation towards sustainable energy systems.

Overall, by the end of 2021, the EU-supported sustainable energy activities in partner countries led to the creation of 31 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity. This enabled more than 29 million people to gain access to sustainable energy and energy services, and avoided 95.8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. By the end of 2020, the Commission had committed EUR 732 million to energy, 44.7% of which was in support of energy policy and 36% in support of renewable-sourced energy generation.

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

In relation to SDG 7, renewable hydrogen plays a crucial role in the global decarbonisation effort, especially in hard-to-abate sectors. It is estimated that demand for global hydrogen and its derivatives will reach 22% of global final energy use by 2050. In 2022, the EU and Namibia signed a memorandum of understanding which envisages a close cooperation in the development of green hydrogen and critical raw materials by facilitating public and private investments in these sectors. Aligned with the priorities of the European Green Deal and RePowerEU plan, the Team Europe Initiative on green hydrogen in Namibia, which contributes to the roll-out of the Global Gateway strategy, aims to foster inclusive green growth and access to sustainable energy.

Achieving clean and affordable energy systems is closely linked to SDG 13 on climate action. The EU provided technical support to many partner countries in their efforts to upgrade their nationally determined contributions in 2021 ahead of COP26, with a particular focus on the sustainable energy sector. Similarly, the Africa-EU Energy Partnership (AEEP)  supports universal access to reliable, affordable and sustainable energy in Africa, by providing an institutionalised platform for strategic dialogue between Africa and the EU in the energy sector, thus contributing to the implementation of SDG 7 and SDG 13.

Increasing the proportion of renewable energy sources in the global energy mix is a priority for SDG 7. Hence, in Togo, a Team Europe Initiative aims to build the country’s renewable energy capacity and support the fulfilment of a national target of 100% electrification by 2030 with 50% renewable energy. The initiative supports the Global Gateway investment priorities on climate and energy, as efforts are directed towards the enhancement of energy efficiency, ensuring a green energy transition and strengthening the role of Togo as a fully-fledged actor in the West African power pool.

Access to affordable and safe energy sources is a key component of SDG 7, but is also directly related to other SDGs, including SDG 2 on zero hunger, SDG 4 on quality education, SDG 5 on gender equality, SDG 8 on sustainable growth and SDG 10 on reduced inequalities. In Mauritania, for example, the Team Europe initiative on transition towards green and blue aims, in association with the private sector, to bring renewable energy to remote areas in order to stimulate employment opportunities, and sustainable and inclusive growth, thus contributing to SDG 8, SDG 2 and SDG, along with the commitments of Global Gateway and its Africa-Europe Investment Package. Similarly in Vietnam, the EU’s programme for sustainable energy has improved households’ access to energy in rural and remote areas and supported the shift towards a future of greener energy. 

Given that 70% of global energy consumption occurs in cities, improving energy infrastructure is a key concern for urban areas and demonstrates the link between SDG 7 and SDG 11. For example, in Balti, Moldova's second largest city, the district heating system was upgraded and modernised with the Eastern Europe Energy Efficiency and Environment Partnership (E5P) fund. This project will reduce the energy bill of households in Balti and save about 18 300 tonnes of CO2 each year.

In 2022, the Commission launched an Energy Support Package worth EUR 1 billion for its Western Balkans partners to address immediate, short-term and medium-term needs in the context of the ongoing energy crisis. Half of the funding was provided as direct budget support, and half invested through the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF), a joint initiative of the EU, financial institutions, bilateral donors and beneficiaries, all working in line with the Team Europe approach to support the short- and mid-term investments in the field of renewable energy generation, green transition and energy efficiency in the region.

The Green for Growth Fund supported by the EU, advances energy and resource efficiency, and renewable energy, in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It leverages funds from the private sector and development banks, and provides refinancing for investments in energy efficiency and capacity building, consulting, and training and invests in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

Actions by the EU and its Member States are mutually reinforcing and coordinated to ensure complementarity and impact in support of the SDGs. In addition to acting together with the EU through joint programming and Team Europe Initiatives, Member States carry out their own projects in support of the 2030 Agenda, including SDG 7, such as the following illustrative initiative. Austria contributes to UNIDO’s Global Network of Regional Sustainable Energy Centres (GN-SEC) platform and the regional Centres for Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency (Caribbean, Pacific, ECOWAS and Central American Integration System). Austria also supports the energy sector and its interlinkages with micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises development, climate change, and gender, by funding projects that tackle energy efficiency measures to reduce emissions and energy consumption as well as expand production capacities.

Looking ahead

In the coming years, the European Union will have to consolidate the implementation of the REPowerEU plan, addressing the triple energy security, price and climate crisis. In line with the European Green Deal, in 2023, the EU will strive to do the following.

-Revise its renewable energy and energy efficiency targets. In March 2023, the EU co-legislators ended with an agreement to increase the renewable energy target to at least 42.5% in 2030 with the aim to reach 45% and energy efficiency target of 11.7% in 2030 compared to 2020 scenario. This will be translated into law in view of achieving the Fit-for-55 objectives as well as the EU’s energy security and resilience objectives of the REPowerEU plan.

-Propose a 2040 climate target in 2024. This target needs to be based on a thorough impact assessment and the Commission is starting the necessary analysis now. 

-Adopt a new regulation on methane emissions reduction in the energy sector, including for imports of fossil fuels.

-Adopt a revised directive for energy performance of buildings, that will set in the law that all new buildings should be zero-emission buildings by 2030, and that existing buildings should be transformed into zero-emission buildings by 2050.

-Adopt a revised Electricity Regulation and Directive that will further integrate renewables, protect and empower consumers and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.

-Adopt a revised Regulation on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency to provide better protection against market manipulation and abuse and enhance the transparency of the market. 

-Adopt the hydrogen and gas markets decarbonisation package to enable the transition of the gas sector towards renewable and low-carbon gases, in particular biomethane and hydrogen, in view of reaching the EU’s goal of climate neutrality in 2050.

-Adopt a new directive on the taxation of energy products and electricity. The aim will be to ensure that the taxation of energy products and electricity better reflects the impact they have on the environment and on health, by removing disadvantages for clean technologies and introducing higher levels of taxation for inefficient and polluting fuels. 

-Create a new European hydrogen bank to kick-start the hydrogen market in the EU and beyond.

Member States will also submit revised National Energy and Climate Plans reflecting the rapidly evolving geopolitical context and significant changes to EU energy and climate policy, including REPowerEU objectives.

On the external side, the EU will continue to take focused actions to accelerate the implementation of SDG 7 globally, including through the roll-out of a range of multiannual indicative programmes with partner countries where affordable and clean energy is a shared priority.

Aligned with the REPowerEU plan and the European Green Deal, the EU will support the reconstruction and transition of Ukraine’s energy system through the development of renewable energy. It will continue to support the energy transition and the integration of energy systems in Eastern Europe countries through the Energy Community.

At multilateral level, the EU will continue to actively support the global clean energy transition, sharing policy and approaches in multilateral organisations such as the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency or the Clean Energy Ministerial, and supporting initiatives such as the Energy Efficiency Hub or the Global Methane Pledge. As an important part of the EU’s external energy engagement strategy, the EU will continue to support coal regions in their transition internationally, with the setting up, with Germany, of a global platform for coal regions.

Aligned with the REPowerEU plan and the European Green Deal, the EU will support the reconstruction and transition of Ukraine’s energy system through the development of renewable energy. It will continue to support the energy transition and the integration of energy systems in Eastern Europe countries through the Energy Community.

The EU aims to deploy a range of Global Gateway flagship projects on sustainable energy infrastructure as a contribution to SDG 7, SDG 13 and other interlinked SDGs. They will have a focus on renewable energy sources, electricity transmission and distribution, energy efficiency and enhanced access to energy services, as well the development of green hydrogen across the world. Global Gateway will be deployed at regional and national level through Team Europe Initiatives, such as the Africa-EU Green Energy Initiative. This will support Africa’s green transition in the energy sector through improving access to energy services, increasing the share of renewable energy in Africa’s energy mix, and supporting energy efficiency in the framework of the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package

Additionally, through EFSD+, the EU aims to provide EUR 6.05 billion in financial guarantees to support 40 investment programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific. The guarantees are expected to generate more than EUR 50 billion in investments in key sectors of the Global Gateway, of which around 25% in renewable energy.

As to EU-funded humanitarian aid, the minimum environmental requirements and recommendations come into force in 2023. To meet these requirements, the use of clean energy in humanitarian interventions is essential.

SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

EU internal action

Overview and challenges

The EU aims to transform into a modern, resource-efficient, fair and competitive economy where there are no new emissions of greenhouse gasses by 2050, economic growth is decoupled from the use of resources, and no person or place is left behind.

The EU economy saw strong and continuous growth between 2014 and 2019. Over 14.5 million jobs were created in this period. The positive trend faltered in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the EU economy, boosted by Europe’s recovery plan, bounced back strongly in 2021 and 2022. This was also seen in the labour market, with the EU’s employment rate reaching a record high of 74.6%, although with a persisting gender employment gap. With the swift recovery, labour and skills shortages have exceed pre-pandemic levels. Adequate minimum wages are key to protecting low–wage earners from in-work poverty and to encouraging people into work.

However there are major uncertainties ahead due to ongoing inflationary pressures, tightening financial conditions and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Overall, GDP growth is estimated at 3.5% in 2022 and is projected to expand by 0.8% in 2023 and 1.6% in 2024 in the EU and employment by 1.8% and 0.1% respectively. Risks to the forecast for economic activity and inflation are heavily dependent on the evolution of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, developments in the energy markets and potential shocks to commodity markets. Employment growth is projected to have slowed down in 2022 and come to a halt in 2023. Long standing challenges remain to the labour market participation of women, young and older workers, people with a migrant background, persons with a minority racial or ethnic background, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.

2030 targets and trends at EU level

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 8 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and in Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs.

Key initiatives

The European Green Deal is the EU’s roadmap for making its economy sustainable by turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities across all policy areas, and by making the transition just and inclusive for all. At the same time, the EU aims for an ‘economy that works for people ’ - its social market economy encourages growth and aims to reduce poverty and inequality.

The  European Pillar of Social Rights action plan outlines actions to implement the 20 principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights in a joint effort by the Members States and the EU, with the active involvement of social partners and civil society. It also proposes headline targets for the EU to achieve by 2030 in employment, skills and poverty reduction. The implementation of the social rights pillar is the EU’s primary means of progressing towards the SDGs in the areas of employment, skills, and social protection.

Several legal initiatives were also set out at EU level. The most important of these is the Directive on adequate minimum wages in the EU adopted in October 2022, which improves minimum wages and aims to increase workers’ access to minimum wage protection. The reinforced Youth Guarantee strengthens activation of all young people, and in particular those not in employment, education or training, and will help reduce social exclusion among young people.. The Youth Employment Initiative supports quality employment, further education, quality traineeships and apprenticeships.

The Council Recommendation on the integration of the long-term unemployed into the labour market aims to help people who have been unemployed for a long time to re-enter the labour market. The Directive on transparent and predictable working conditions in the EU complements existing obligations to inform each worker about their working conditions and sets new minimum EU standards on working conditions for all workers. The Recommendation on an effective active support to employment following the COVID-19 crisis (EASE) supports the transition from emergency measures to preserve jobs during the pandemic to new measures needed for a job-rich recovery.

The  European Semester integrates the surveillance and coordination of economic and employment policies to promote sustainable economic growth, job creation, financial stability and sound public finances. Since 2018, the EU’s  Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy  (ASGS) has emphasised the need to refocus the European Semester on integrating the SDGs and advancing competitive sustainability. From 2020 onwards, the ASGS has further specified that the European Semester should help implement the European Green Deal, the European Pillar of Social Rights and the SDGs.

Tools to effectively carry out this agenda have recently been revised in the light of the policy context after the COVID-19 crisis and with the war in Ukraine. In 2021, the Commission launched a review of the EU economic governance framework (see the  Economic Governance Review ), with the aim of improving the effectiveness of integrated surveillance and policy coordination in the EU. In April 2023, the Commission presented legislative proposals to implement the most comprehensive reform of the EU’s economic governance framework since the aftermath of the economic and financial crisis. The central objective of these proposals is to strengthen public debt sustainability while promoting sustainable and inclusive growth. EU Member States will design and present plans setting out their fiscal targets, measures to address macroeconomic imbalances and priority reforms and investment over a period of at least four years. The proposals facilitate and encourage EU Member States to implement growth-enhancing reforms and investments in order to build the green, digital and resilient economy of the future. In this context there is an enhanced role for national fiscal institutions to be built over time.

The EU is also working to create the capital market and banking unions. A more integrated capital market could facilitate risk sharing and investment in businesses irrespective of their location, providing capital for the green and digital transitions and helping reduce the impact of financial shocks. Work on the Banking Union aims to make banks more resilient, to establish a European deposit insurance scheme and to create a more integrated single market for banking services.

Selected enablers

Financial resources, reforms and investments as well as science and innovation are strong means to implement the SDGs in the EU.

With the objective of boosting job creation and economic growth, the Investment Plan for Europe mobilised more than EUR 500 billion in investment in the EU in 2015-2020 through the budgetary guarantee of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). This investment plan was followed by the Sustainable Europe Investment Plan (SEIP), which is the investment pillar of the European Green Deal. The plan aims to mobilise at least EUR 1 trillion in sustainable investments over the next decade.

The plan includes InvestEU , which is one of the Commission’s main programmes to support the sustainable transition of the EU economy by providing financial guarantees to implementing partners. It will mobilise more than EUR 372 billion in public and private funding for debt and equity investments in EU companies across four policy windows: Sustainable Infrastructure Window, Research, Innovation and Digitalisation Window, SMEs Window, Social Investments and Skills Window. At least 30% of the InvestEU financing must contribute to climate objectives, and many of its financial products have a strong focus on sustainability.

Supporting investments for jobs and growth is a core priority of Cohesion policy. By the end of the 2021-2027 programmes’ implementation, estimations show that GDP in certain Member States will be +3 to 4% higher than in a scenario without cohesion policy (with an even higher impact for some regions), with the creation of about 1,3 million additional jobs. The programmes are a direct response to the country specific recommendations addressed to Member States in the context of the European Semester.

Furthermore, over EUR 23 billion of Cohesion policy funds will be spent on helping SMEs to grow and improve their competitiveness. The European Regional Development Fund contributes to smart economic transformation by enhancing sustainable growth, competitiveness and job creation in SMEs, including by productive investments and through financial instruments, by developing skills for smart specialisation, industrial transition and entrepreneurship, and investing in education and training infrastructure. The European Regional Development Fund has for the first time a dedicated specific objective of supporting skills for smart specialisation, industrial transition and entrepreneurship in 65 000 SMEs.

With a budget of EUR 99.3 billion (2021-2027), the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) also makes an important contribution to the EU’s efforts to promote employment and decent work, education and skills policies, and structural reforms in these areas. For example, the project ‘Convergence between academic training and active life’ in Romania helps students complement their academic knowledge with skills developed during good quality internships.

The Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) instrument has mobilised EUR 92 billion to help Member States fight the negative economic and social consequences of COVID-19 on their territory. The instrument proved effective in supporting short-time work schemes. SURE supported approximately 31.5 million people and 2.5 million firms in 2020, representing almost one third of total employment and firms in the 19 Member States that benefited. SURE continued to safeguard employment in 2021, in particular in the first half of the year, bb supporting approximately 9 million people and over 800 000 firms.

NextGenerationEU is the EUR 750 billion temporary (recovery instrument, implemented over 6 years, to help repair the immediate economic and social damage brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Recovery and Resilience F acility (RRF) makes EUR 723.8 billion in loans and grants available to support reforms and investments made by EU countries. The RRF aims to finance reforms and investments with long-lasting impact, making the EU more sustainable, resilient and better prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the green and digital transitions. The RRF is designed to help the EU achieve its target of climate neutrality by 2050 and sets Europe on a path of digital transition, creating jobs and spurring growth in the process. The reforms proposed in the national recovery and resilience plans tackle (a significant subset of) the challenges identified in the country specific recommendations addressed to Member States in the context of the European Semester. Estimates suggest that, if well used, funds from NextGenerationEU could boost the EU’s real GDP by around 1.5% in the long term and support the creation of new jobs.

In March 2023, the REPowerEU Regulation entered into force. The REPowerEU Plan, as the EU’s response to the global energy crisis, recognises the role of the RRF for achieving secure, affordable and green energy. Under REPowerEU, the RRF will support Member States in putting forward additional reforms and investments to rapidly phase-out the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, accelerate the clean energy transition, support the reskilling of the workforce, and address energy poverty. These new or scaled-up measures, to be included in dedicated REPowerEU chapters, will come on top of the already ambitious green agenda of the existing recovery and resilience plans, which already include support to environmental priorities such as the circular economy.

The RRF Scoreboard provides extensive information on the implementation of the facility. For example, the German recovery and resilience plan will contribute to major multi-country initiatives aimed at strengthening European innovation and industry in three strategic technological areas: hydrogen, microelectronics and cloud technologies. It is planned to implement these initiatives through Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs), which make it possible to bring together knowledge, expertise, financial resources and economic players from across the EU.

Another example is from the Spanish recovery and resilience plan. This is the reform of employment contracts, amending existing regulations on the use of temporary contracts, to promote the use of open-ended contracts. The plan also includes measures to strengthen and modernise public employment services and provide more efficient and targeted support to jobseekers. These include digitalisation and improving processes in the employment services, training staff, and recruiting temporary staff to face the effects of the crisis.

Research and Innovation actions under Horizon Europe explore how the EU can transform its economy to become more inclusive and sustainable. For example, in 2017-2020, the project  InGRID-2  (Integrating Research Infrastructure for European expertise on Inclusive Growth from data to policy) supported joint research activities and research networks focusing on social inclusion and exclusion, the workplace and related social and labour market policies. In another project, a consortium of research institutions and national statistical institutes explored and harmonised indicators beyond GDP that measure sustainability and wellbeing ( Makswell – MAKing Sustainable development and WELL-being frameworks work for policy analysis). Research projects are providing new understanding on labour market impacts and how the EU can ensure decent jobs and good social protection. The  TransEuroWorkS  project aims to provide information for policymakers by examining changes in work and social protection across Europe and the their impact on people.

Another example is the project ‘Support to the tourism ecosystem: towards a more sustainable, resilient and digital tourism’ in Italy, supported by the Technical Support Instrument under the call for 2022. Tourism is an important economic driver in Italy, but reforms are needed to overcome long-standing structural weaknesses and build the foundations for recovery. The main objective of this project is to strengthen the governance model and evidence base for tourism, and promote sustainable, resilient and digital tourism in Italy.

Stakeholder engagement

The EU take a collaborative approach to deliver on its agenda to promote decent working conditions. In the framework of the European Semester process, the Structured Dialogue provides an opportunity for the European Commission to engage with both employers and trade unions to discuss the issues, challenges, and possible policy responses on the economy, labour market and social protection.

To reflect collectively on new trends and best practices, the Commission also regularly organises annual flagship events, such as

·The Annual Convention for Inclusive Growth, provides a platform for civil society organisations and policymakers to discuss how to make the EU’s economy work for all.

· The Brussels Economic Forum (BEF) is the flagship annual economic event of the European Commission, gathering high-level European and international policymakers, academics, civil society and business leaders to identify key challenges and debate policy priorities for the European economy.

· The EU Sustainable Investment Summit is the European Commission’s flagship annual event on sustainable investment, bringing decision makers and stakeholders together to discuss key issues and challenges linked to the European Green Deal and its investment plan.

· The Annual Research Conference (ARC) is where European institutions exchange knowledge and engage in dialogue with researchers in academic institutions and think tanks, practitioners in civil society organisations and citizens. In 2022 the focus was ‘how to turn green the European way: keeping cutting the edge while remaining social and fair’.

In 2022, the Commission also organized the first edition of the European Employment and Social Rights Forum, where stakeholders were invited to discuss the social dimension of the green transition.

While the green transition provides ample opportunities for good quality jobs, the transition requires new green skills. Therefore, the Skills for the Green Transition Award highlights best-practice initiatives to develop education, training and skills that support the shift towards a sustainable, clean, carbon-neutral circular economy and society.

Good quality apprenticeships and on-the-job training are key to ensuring new job opportunities and developing people’s skills. The European Alliance for Apprenticeships Award  recognise outstanding achievements by companies and their apprentices that help improve the quality, supply and overall image of apprenticeships across Europe.

The European Entrepreneurial Region (EER) is an award that identifies and rewards EU regions and cities with an outstanding and innovative strategy to encourage entrepreneurship through sustainable and credible initiatives with measurable targets. Cooperation with a broad range of stakeholders is essential to developing an entrepreneurial culture within a region. Since its creation in 2010, the EER label has been granted to 39 regions and cities from 17 EU Member States. The EER label for 2023 has been granted to Barcelona (Spain), Penela (Portugal) and Western Pomerania (Poland).

Multi-level approach

SDG delivery implies ambitious action at all levels. For example,

The Start-Up Nation programme in Romania supports citizens abroad who want to set up a business in their home country with grants of up to ROL 200 000 (approx. EUR 40 000). The maximum amount can be obtained if at least two full-time jobs are created through the project. The beneficiary company must bring a co-financing of at least 5% of the eligible costs of the project. The programme aims to help set up and develop SMEs and create new jobs. The programme has supported, among other things, investments in energy-saving installations and equipment, and systems that use renewable energy sources.

The regional government of Wallonia in Belgium has partnered with the Walloon business federation to increase awareness of the SDGs and encourage the private sector to implement them. The website ‘ Les SDGs pour les entreprises wallonnes’  provides guidance to firms on integrating the SDGs into their business practices and models. For this purpose, two catalogues of actions that enterprises can take inspiration from have been published on the website.

Several European cities (including Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin) are experimenting with the ‘doughnut economy’ model to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and encourage participatory processes to improve social conditions, while minimising climate and environmental impacts.

EU external action 

Global trends

In 2010-2020, real GDP per capita grew steadily, if modestly, across the world, with low but rising unemployment rates in least developed counties. With the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, GDP growth slowed down considerably, job losses and the increase in numbers of people not in education, employment or training (NEET) have been unprecedented, with vulnerable groups, women and young people affected disproportionately. Workers in the informal sector and small firms have been hit particularly hard in the absence of well-established social protection systems. School closures have led to increased child labour and longer working hours of those already in work (see the  UN SDG 2021 and 2022 reports). Recent developments, notably the impacts of the Russian aggression on Ukraine, have increased the threat to workers’ livelihoods and working conditions and exacerbated inequalities in income and in the labour market.

Internal/external coherence including policy coherence for development

Coherence between internal and external policies plays an important role in avoiding negative spillover effects in terms of growth and employment, and in ensuring a global spread of the economic recovery following the COVID-pandemic. The EU plays an active role in promoting sound and sustainable macroeconomic policies in non-EU countries, through economic diplomacy, bilateral relations and in multilateral forums such as the G7 and the G20. It also holds regular dialogues on macroeconomic and structural policy issues with candidate countries, EU Neighbourhood countries and most of the non-EU G20 countries such as Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

Through its active role as a member of the G20, the EU is able to promote its internal policies outside the EU. Examples of this include the G20 Framework for Growth Working Group, which was set up with the purpose of attaining strong, sustainable and balanced growth. In this working group, discussions touch upon the appropriate policy mix, macroeconomic developments and challenges, and the range of impacts of climate change and mitigation policies. Discussions also include the EU role in the employment strand of the G20. Furthermore, to ensure that growth is sustainable, the EU strongly promotes the priorities of the European Green Deal among its international partners. In this vein, the EU actively contributes to a global effort on resource efficiency and decoupling growth from environmental degradation, as described in more detail under SDG12.

Most recently, the EU has also been a strong driving force behind the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments. It has ensured consistency between EU and international work on fair taxation in the digital age, and helped to bring together donors and creditors under the G20 Compact with Africa. The European Commission also proposed a series of measures to modernise and make the EU’s Value-Added Tax (VAT) system work better for businesses and more resilient to fraud by embracing and promoting digitalisation.

As the EU economy is connected to millions of workers around the world through global supply chains, and as EU consumers increasingly demand socially and environmentally sustainable fair trade goods, the EU engages with the private sector as well as with governments in partner countries on responsible business conduct in global supply chains . In line with that, the EU fosters the provision of expertise in the area of employment and social protection in partner countries via the SOCIEUX+ technical assistance facility and promote decent work in specific sectors through programmes such as the ‘farm to fork strategy’, the ‘raw materials initiative’, ‘better work’ and the ‘vision zero fund’.

Key partnerships with the UN and the OECD, in particular, have been instrumental for the EU in promoting international standards on responsible business conduct on a global scale, and in encouraging the uptake of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Tripartite Declaration, and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in global supply chains.

The proposed  corporate sustainability due diligence Directive  aims to broaden the scope from voluntary standards in responsible business conduct to a horizontal legal framework to prevent, mitigate and end the adverse social, climate and environmental impacts of corporate activities across their value chains. It thus promotes policy coherence for development as it aims to foster sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour and to anchor mandatory human rights and environmental considerations in companies’ operations in non-EU countries as well as businesses from outside the EU that operate in the EU. Human Rights in encompass issues such as forced labour, child labour, inadequate workplace health and safety and the exploitation of workers. The proposed directive would further strengthen other measures such as the EU conflict minerals Regulation , which creates supply chain due diligence obligations for EU importers of tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, to ensure that imports of those minerals into the EU do not contribute to armed conflict and other associated human rights abuses along the supply chain. The regulation also aims to promote sustainable development in the countries concerned by encouraging responsible sourcing, including from conflict-affected and high-risk areas. In addition, with the Regulation for deforestation-free products , the EU aims to reduce the impact of deforestation on nature and people in non-EU countries by introducing stringent due diligence obligations for corporations.

The EU adopted its  strategy on the rights of the child  in 2021 and committed to a zero-tolerance approach to child labour in supply chains. In this context the EU adopted a new programme to address child labour in supply chains. The Commission has also adopted a legislative proposal to prohibit products made with forced labour  from being placed on or exported from the EU single market [1] . The proposal builds on internationally agreed definitions and standards and covers all products, namely those made in the EU for domestic consumption and export, and imported goods, without targeting specific products, companies, industries or geographical locations. Furthermore, the Communication on decent work worldwide reaffirms the EU’s commitment to champion decent work both at home and around the world.

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

In 2021, EU institutions reported to OECD commitments totalling EUR 8.2 billion in projects contributing to SDG 8, making it one of the largest recipients of EU development assistance along with SDGs 1 and 10. The largest share of the EU contribution is accounted for by projects that target SDG 8 as the main SDG. These projects also make a significant contribution to other interlinked SDGs, in particular SDGs 1, 5, 9 and 10. Other SDGs also contribute to SDG8 as a significant objective. The main contributors are SDGs 1, 9, 13 and 17. When taking into account also other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD) of the EU to SDG 8 amounted to EUR 13.6 billion in 2021 

The results of assistance 24 include more than half a million jobs that were supported or sustained by the EU. Further, nearly 800 000 firms and more than 2,6 million people had access to financial services with EU support in 2018-2021. In addition, nearly 2 million people benefited from EU-supported initiatives to give vocational education and training or develop skills. As for the enlargement region, in 2018-2021 the EU supported or sustained more than 1.8 million jobs, 1 082 535 firms had access to financial services with EU support, and the EU supported 23 public policies to strengthen revenue mobilisation, public financial management and budget transparency to strengthen the investment climate.

Collectively, the EU and those Member States that reported on SDGs to the OECD in 2021 contributed EUR 12.5 billion to SDG 8. EU and Member State funding for SDG 8 in 2021 focused predominantly on projects in Africa (61%), Asia (14%) and non-EU countries in Europe (12%).

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement

In relation to SDG 8, the EU helps partner countries to improve the conditions for equitable and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work. A core dimension of the EU’s activity is to foster an improved business environment and investment climate to create conditions that are more conducive to private sector development and foreign direct investments.

In this context, and in line with partner countries’ own policies and plans to achieve sustainable growth, the EU’s priorities for its external actions that contribute to SDG 8 and interlinked SDGs include:

·making growth environmentally sustainable, including by fostering digitalisation and reducing carbon emissions;

·making growth socially sustainable, including by promoting decent work and human rights for workers worldwide, as well as responsible business conduct;

·making growth inclusive, by reducing inequalities.

Boosting investment in partner countries has been supported through the  European fund for sustainable development (EFSD), set up in 2017 and providing EU budgetary guarantees covering up to EUR 5.1 billion of operations in 2017-2021. The fund was designed to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, namely by supporting sustainable and inclusive growth, creating decent jobs, promoting gender equality and empowering women and young people. The EFSD provides guarantees and blended finance to facilitate investment in the European Neighbourhood and in sub-Saharan African countries through activities to reduce risks for private investors in more challenging markets, with the goal of leveraging EUR 50 billion of investments.

The fund’s successor, the EFSD+ and the external action guarantee, set up in 2021 with the capacity to provide EU budgetary guarantees covering up to EUR 53.45 billion of operations in 2021-2027, has evolved from a regionally focused approach to a global scope. It contributes to aim at eradicating poverty and promoting sustainable development, prosperity, peace and stability, including by mobilising private sector financing.

In 2022, the Commission launched the first EFSD+ call for proposals (available envelope EUR 5.95 billion) under the Open Access Window. The EFSD+ Regional Operational Boards held in 2022 and January 2023 endorsed 55 proposals amounting to EUR 8.4 billion across world regions. Furthermore, in 2022 the Commission signed five guarantee agreements in sectors related to digital, financial inclusion, cities and MSME lending amounting to EUR 295 million.

Under the roll-out of the Global Gateway strategy across the world, including in the case of the Western Balkans and the Neighbourhood region through the implementation of the Economic and Investment Plans, the EU aims to mobilise up to EUR 300 billion of investments in 2021-2027 to boost smart, clean and secure links in the digital, energy and transport sectors, and to strengthen health, education and research systems, thus supporting the implementation of the SDGs.

Furthermore, EU budget support encourages the implementation of reforms and macro-economic stability and, together with macro financial assistance during the pandemic, provided countries with a lifeline for SMEs massively affected by lockdowns  and with social protection for the most vulnerable people. EU budget support provides a platform for dialogue, including with the private sector, and a set of incentives for reforms, capacity development and policies to improve economic governance and the investment climate.

The EU also provides aid for trade assistance to support partner countries' efforts to develop and expand their trade as a way to grow their economy and reduce poverty. The respective policies and objectives are set out in the EU’s aid for trade strategy of 2017 , referred to in this report under SDG 17.

The EU’s Communication on decent work worldwide  highlighted the importance of fundamental labour rights, decent working conditions, protection of vulnerable groups and social protection for the achievement of the SDGs.

The scope of SDG 8 is particularly broad, and the main EU actions which ensure that growth in partner countries is sustainable, integrating environmental and climate considerations, are described in more detail in other chapters such as those on SDGs 12 and 13.

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

Promoting sustainable growth and decent work is at the heart of SDG 8 while also being important for achieving other SDGs, such as addressing poverty (SDG 1), food security (SDG 2), gender equality (SDG 5), reducing inequality (SDG 10) and for ensuring responsible consumption and production patterns in global value chains (SDG 12).

In this sense, one project that is taking a particularly cross-cutting approach is the Team Europe initiative being developed to support sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development in Iraq. It will include actions to create decent jobs (including for young people and vulnerable groups), on economic governance, the economic empowerment of women, economic diversification, private sector development, entrepreneurship, the digital economy, the green economy, education and skills development.

Some initiatives focus on young people and women, thereby contributing to SDGs 4, 5 and 10. These include for example three Team Europe Initiatives which contribute to roll out the Global Gateway strategy, and the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package in particular, the #nigergenerationsfutures aims to provide Nigeriens, especially young people and women, with opportunities to develop their skills and engage in decent work, improving the business environment, facilitating access to financing, developing legal private businesses in promising sectors and increasing people’s potential through education and healthcare, especially for girls.

In the same vein, the regional Team Europe Initiative ‘Investing in young businesses in Africa’ supports and develops early-stage businesses by improved quantity and quality of financial instruments available and technical assistance. The Team Europe Initiative ‘Europe-Benin: Sustainable growth and employment for young people’ which is also part of the Global Gateway Africa-Europe investment package aims to improve people’s potential by using technical and vocational education and training and entrepreneurship as levers to transform the country’s economic and social structure. The focus is on vocational training and on supporting the private sector on entrepreneurship and decent job creation, primarily for young people and women. In North Macedonia, the EU has supported educational reform and the entry of more than 26 000 young people into the labour market and further supports the country in addressing the mismatch between the educational offer and the demand in the labour market through a vocational education and training reform. The  EU for Youth  budget support, rolling out the youth guarantee, contributed to improving young people’s skills and reducing youth unemployment from 30.5% in 2019 to around 25% in 2022.

The Team Europe Initiative ‘Decent work’ in Bangladesh contributes to the Global Gateway’s investment priorities and provides a socio-economic response to the impacts of COVID-19. This project aims to address cross-cutting issues by mainstreaming gender, a rights-based approach, the Green Deal and digitalisation. While it is focused on employment and decent work, its actions will span many areas such as education, social protection, the business environment, and accountability and transparency in economic governance. In 2021, the EU strengthened efforts to boost women’s economic empowerment in partner countries by launching a new partnership with the Tony Elumelu Foundation that supports 2 500 African women entrepreneurs.

In contribution to SDGs 8, 12 and 13, the Team Europe Initiative ‘Green Growth’ in Malawi supports Global Gateway investment priorities and aims to sustain agriculture, social stability and (youth) employment in Malawi. The main objective is to create jobs under a sustainable food systems approach focusing on agriculture diversification, environment and nutrition as growth enablers. The Team Europe Initiative ‘ Green Paraguay ’ under the Global Gateway, which aims to promote global climate action and the green transition, in line with EU’s Green Deal. The initiative will build a strong EU-Paraguay partnership on environment and climate change and raise awareness among young Paraguayans to transition towards a more sustainable and resilient economic model in Paraguay. In addition, the Team Europe Global Green Bond Initiative will support partner countries in increasing and diversifying their access to private capital for an inclusive and sustainable transition.

In Albania, the EU’s 2020-2024 social inclusion programme responded to the emergency with measures providing economic aid and support to employees of SMEs affected by COVID-19, taking into account gender and disability. A minimum salary was provided to 65 574 people from temporary closed small businesses during three months. The EU has also taken action to support businesses and workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby contributing to SDGs 1 and 12. Also in North Macedonia, thanks to EU for Resilience budget support, 4 558 companies benefited from EU funding and 4 824 persons in risk of unemployment preserved their jobs and professional activities. Similarly, in Armenia, the EU has supported socio-economic recovery and helped make the economy more resilient with the support programme ‘COVID-19 Resilience Contract for Armenia’ (2020-2022). The programme provided much needed financial assistance through existing government schemes to over 2 million vulnerable people, as well as support in grants or loans to almost 20 000 SMEs. Also in Armenia, a Team Europe Initiative – Resilient Syunik – was launched in January 2023 to encompass various interrelated pillars: MSME development, skills and employment, education, social services, sustainable and green public infrastructure, good local governance and citizen engagement.

Actions by the EU and its Member States are mutually reinforcing and coordinated to ensure complementarity and impact in support of the SDGs. In addition to acting together with the EU through joint programming and Team Europe Initiatives, EU Member States carry out their own projects in support of the 2030 Agenda, such as the following initiatives, which are included for illustrative purposes.

In line with the objectives of SDG 8, Hungary supports a cashew farm project in Kenya, which helps to provide a livelihood for 15 000 people and has created jobs through the development of processing activities.

Through a financial technology transfer agency, Luxembourg supports training programmes in Kosovo, Cabo Verde, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Laos, Mongolia, Rwanda, Vietnam and West Africa. In addition to transferring knowledge in the banking sector, this exchange is creating lasting international links between professionals in the sector.

Looking ahead

The Conference on the Future of Europe showed broad support for the EU to more actively support the shift to a sustainable and resilient growth model, consistent with the green and digital transitions and with a strong social dimension. The conventional macroeconomic indicators and GDP figures could be complemented with new indicators to address European priorities such as the European Green Deal or the European Pillar of Social Rights, and to better reflect the green and digital transitions and people’s wellbeing.

The European Commission’s 2023 annual sustainable growth survey recognises that, in light of the mix of challenges and risks to economic growth, economic and social policies must remain both coordinated and agile whilst maintaining their course towards long term objectives. This includes securing an adequate and affordable energy supply, safeguarding economic and financial stability, and protecting vulnerable households and companies. At the same time, more rapid action is needed to boost growth and create good quality jobs, and to deliver on the green and digital transitions. In this context, the EU is looking to reform its economic governance framework. This aims to strengthen debt sustainability and enhance sustainable and inclusive growth through investment and reforms.

To make progress in achieving the objectives of SDG 8 and in line with its reply to the outcomes the Conference on the Future of Europe , the Commission will take further action in the context of the Working Time Directive in the Member States to address evolving changes and challenges in the organisation of work, e.g. due to digitalisation. Further initiatives will also be proposed to make the EU’s industries sustainable, digital and resilient, address demographic changes, in particular ageing and depopulation, and to tackle employment and labour shortages that result from the current geopolitical context.

The upcoming proposal for a Council recommendation on social economy framework conditions, announced in the action plan for the social economy adopted in December 2021, will also aim to create quality jobs, foster social and labour-market inclusion, and promote sustainable development through targeted recommendations to Member States on how to recognise, support, and build on the contributions of the social economy towards these goals.

The Commission will also consider new areas of action, including via an integrated approach that looks beyond GDP to measure and monitor wellbeing, sustainability and resilience, as proposed in the 8th Environmental Action Programme. Insights from a recent report on the green employment and skills transformation  demonstrate that there is an opportunity for the European Green Deal to create more decent jobs and increase workers’ skills, in particular in skilled manual occupations. The development of the taxonomy of skills for the green transition will support a fair and sustainable transition by creating better and more diversified employment.

At the international level, the EU will continue to take determined action to accelerate the implementation of SDG 8 globally, including by rolling out a range of multiannual programmes with partner countries in which sustainable growth and decent employment are a shared priority. A tangible contribution to SDG 8 (and other interlinked SDGs) will be the deployment of the Global Gateway strategy at regional and national level, including the Team Europe initiative Investing in young businesses in Africa (IYBA), which helps young African businesses and entrepreneurs in their initial growth stages to access to medium-term and long-term finance.

SDG 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation

EU internal action

Overview and challenges

Between 2015 and 2022, numerous challenges shook the EU on its path towards implementing SDG 9. In the face of these challenges, the EU showed the added value of its open strategic autonomy approach. The COVID-19 pandemic and political tensions, compounded by environmental and health issues, have challenged the resilience of the EU’s infrastructure and industry. The question of supply and value chain resilience has only grown more pertinent in the context of the international order.

Furthermore, while industrial greenhouse gas emissions have decreased, they have not done so fast enough to curb the effects of climate change. The EU is working to keep its climate action goals within reach, including through reducing emissions by at least 55% by 2030. In order to achieve these goals, the EU also faces the immense challenge of organising the free movement of goods and people in the EU’s internal market in an environmentally friendly way. Transitioning and transforming European industry requires a multi-pronged approach; this is why the EU Taxonomy for sustainable activities was put in place to help direct funding towards green investments.

Under pressure from these challenges, the EU’s industrial landscape is undergoing a series of transformations, where the role of industry in our environmental, economic and societal well-being is acknowledged and acted upon.

Research and development (R&D) are essential to promoting innovation and sustainable industrialisation in the EU in line with SDG 9. R&D is key to making transportation and societal infrastructure (e.g. hospitals, schools and universities) more sustainable, and to developing new green infrastructures. At Member State level, R&D investments remains uneven, with R&D intensity varying from 0.5% to 3.5% of GDP in 2020. Only seven Member States reached their 2020 targets. These targets have been renewed for 2030.

According to the latest edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard, the score for EU’s innovation performance increased by 9.9% between 2015 and 2022, mainly due to strong improvements in performance in broadband penetration, venture capital expenditure and international scientific co-publications.

2030 targets and trends at EU level

More details on indicators and trends for SDG 9 can be found in the statistical and analytical annex and Eurostat’s monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs.

Key initiatives

In support of achieving SDG 9, the EU has developed a ‘twin digital and green transitions’ narrative. This approaches the issues in a systemic way, with a wide range of policies in place addressing or touching upon infrastructures, industrialisation and innovation.

In order to reach the climate targets of the European Green Deal, the EU’s " Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy ” aims for a major revamping of infrastructure and sets various milestones for smart and sustainable transport modes. In particular, the Strategy states that there should be at least 30 million zero-emission cars in operation on European roads and more than 3 million publicly accessible recharging points deployed (see SDG 11). In order to achieve this goal, the Commission proposed a new Regulation on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (AFIR) with binding targets for the rollout of recharging and refuelling infrastructure. Moreover, support to the digitalisation pillar of the sustainable and smart mobility strategy has also been promoted though investments for the digitalisation of all transport modes, including on board and fixed equipment for the European Railway Traffic Management System (ERTMS), Intelligent Transport Services (ITS) for road and Air Traffic Management (ATM), accompanying the green transition. In addition, the EU space-based technologies, such as Galileo and EGNOS, are key enablers for smart and sustainable transport, particularly for connected and autonomous driving. EGNOS can also aid in improving the safety and environmental efficiency of the aviation sector by enabling fuel-efficient landing and navigation solutions.

At the same time, the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T)  policy aims at implementing an effective EU-wide and multimodal network of roads, railway lines, inland waterways, ports, airports and rail-road terminals. In 2021, the Commission proposed a revision of the TEN-T legal framework, strengthening technical parameters for all transport modes and including a proposal for extension of European Transport Corridors to neighbouring countries in the Western Balkans as well as Ukraine and Moldova. In addition, Member States are proposed to collect and report monitoring data on such aspects as greenhouse gas emissions, air and noise pollution and congestion in all cities designated as urban nodes.

The EU is also transforming its industrial ecosystems with an updated Industrial Strategy for Europe  and a novel approach to industrial transformation through co-created transition pathways. These pathways are involving industries, policymakers and stakeholders across entire value chains to work on identified gaps and fostering partnerships. So far, the Commission has adopted pathways for the tourism, proximity and social economy, chemicals, construction and textile ecosystems. To monitor twin and resilience transition of industrial ecosystems and the implementation of transition pathways, a new monitoring tool named the European Monitor of Industrial Ecosystems (EMI) has been created. The project will deliver a set of reports that support and Industrial Ecosystem analysis of industrial competitiveness, green and digital transition and resilience.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key actors in transforming the EU’s industrial landscape. Representing 99% of all businesses in the EU, SMEs are at the centre of the Commission's action and the 2020  SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe . The strategy aims to considerably increase the number of SMEs engaging in sustainable business practices as well as the number of SMEs employing digital technologies. In doing this, it is being supported by the Enterprise Europe Network, European Clusters network and European Digital Innovation Hubs (see below).

The  Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030 has set ambitious targets, including with respect to Europe’s connectivity infrastructure and the digital transformation of businesses by 2030. With the development of a state-of-the-art connectivity system, IRIS2 (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite), the EU will offer enhanced communication capacities to governmental users as well as to business users.

Europe seeks to make its transition sustainable and competitive by fostering sustainable innovation via the New European Innovation Agenda. This initiative aims to position Europe at the forefront of the new wave of deep tech innovation and start-ups, to develop new technologies to address the most pressing societal challenges, and to bring them to the market.

The new Innovation Agenda is completed by the new European Research Area (ERA). Based on excellent, competitive, open and talent-driven science, ERA will improve Europe's research and innovation landscape, accelerate the EU’s transition towards climate neutrality and digital leadership, support its recovery from the societal and economic impact of the coronavirus crisis and strengthen its resilience against future crises.

The European Chips Act will ensure that the EU has the necessary tools, skills and technological capabilities to become a leader in this field, going beyond research and technology in design, manufacturing and packaging of advanced chips, to secure its supply of semiconductors and to reduce its dependencies.

Selected enablers

Financial resources, reforms and investments as well as science and innovation are strong means to implement the SDGs in the EU.

Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of EUR 95.5 billion from 2021-2027. The programme helps implement the 17 SDGs, and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth. It facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies in tackling global challenges. At the same time, it supports the creation and better dispersion of excellent knowledge and technologies, creates jobs, fully engages the EU’s talent pool and optimises investment impact within a strengthened European Research Area. Under Horizon Europe, the European Innovation Council (EIC), with a budget of EUR 10.1 billion, aims to support game-changing innovations throughout the lifecycle, from early-stage research to proof of concept, technology transfer, and the financing and scale-up of start-ups and SMEs. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) drives innovation by bringing together organisations from the business, higher education and research sectors to find solutions to pressing global challenges through offering support to entrepreneurial education, developing innovative projects and business creation and acceleration.

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is a key EU funding instrument that supports the development of high performing, sustainable and efficiently interconnected trans-European networks in the fields of transport, energy and digital services. In 2014-2020, CEF supported over 1000 projects on the trans-European transport network for a total amount of EUR 23 billion. The great majority of such projects concerned sustainable modes of transport such as railways, maritime transport and inland waterways, as well as alternative fuels infrastructure and intelligent traffic management systems. In 2021-2027, a further EUR 25.8 billion are available for projects aimed at completing the TEN-T network. Resilience of EU’s infrastructure to climate change will be further strengthened with the extended climate-proofing requirements for new investments.

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)  and the Cohesion Fund also contribute to enhance mobility by developing a climate resilient, intelligent, secure, sustainable and intermodal Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), access to TEN-T, urban and cross-border mobility. EU cohesion Funds support regions and cities to reach the targets of climate neutrality and circular economy by 2050 and contribute to a just transition. Under the objective “A more connected Europe”, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)  and the Cohesion Fund will dedicate around EUR 40 billion of EU funding to increase investment in the digital and green transition of the transport sector, while also continuing to improve connectivity and traffic safety, in line with the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility  is instrumental in developing the EU Member States’ research and innovation systems, with a real transformative impact should the efforts be maintained over time. The research and innovation investments in the Member States’ recovery and resilience plans (with a budget of around EUR 50 billion) represent between 4% and 13% of each country’s Recovery and Resilience Facility allocation, with only a few outliers and an average of about 10%.

Cyprus provides an example of how recovery and resilience plans are being used to reform the research and innovation system. The Cypriot plan includes ambitious reform to develop a comprehensive national research and innovation policy to support the innovation ecosystem and to strengthen the links between policymaking and implementation. The reform consists in the adoption of a national strategy for research and innovation, a related action plan, and the revised smart specialisation strategy, with the latter including priorities to build competitive advantages by developing and matching strengths to business needs.

The Danish recovery and resilience plan will provide funding to the public and private sectors to boost research and development, particularly in innovative green technologies. The programme will be structured around at least four public-private partnerships, called ‘green partnerships’. These bring together research institutions, private businesses, public authorities and innovation actors to develop solutions to four mission-based challenges of reducing emissions in the transport, agriculture, food and waste sectors.

The ‘ PANOPTIS ’ project, with an EU contribution of EUR 5 million, aims to increase the resilience of road infrastructures in the face of unfavourable conditions such as extreme weather, landslides and earthquakes. By means of an application, the project combines climate change scenarios with simulation tools and data, using terrestrial and airborne sensors and advanced modelling tools.

The Horizon Europe-financed ‘ECOS’ project (‘EU SDG-driven Innovation Ecosystems: Stimulating economic growth and addressing innovation support imbalances in Europe and beyond’) aims to build capacity to co-create and foster an inclusive EU SDG-driven innovation ecosystem, focused on the greatest social, economic and environmental needs of our time, thereby contributing to the realisation of the green and digital transition of Europe. The project provides capacity-building activities to enable the establishment of SDG-driven innovation ecosystems across project members, which can then be used to plan an interconnected and sustainable ecosystem by delivering new research and data, facilitating knowledge exchange, and creating new collaboration and engagement opportunities within existing networks and beyond.

The Horizon Europe Missions emphasise the evolution of industrial, societal and cultural structures towards sustainability. One notable example, the Climate-neutral and Smart Cities Mission , is a partnership between the Commission and 112 European cities, each resolving to become climate-neutral by 2050, and to transform their economic and societal landscape to achieve this goal in a sustainable way.

Another example is the ‘Startup Ecosystem Strategy’ project in Romania, supported by the Structural Reform Support Programme under the call for 2020. Romania’s innovative capacity ranked last in the EU in 2019, and public and private spending for research, development and innovation was one of the lowest, and the start-ups’ survival rate was low. The project aimed to address the lack of an evidence-based strategic framework and tailored policy measures to support the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a focus on innovative start-ups. The support was delivered through the exchange of good practices, recommendations, inputs and a pilot for the design of strategic planning to animate the Romanian entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Stakeholder engagement

The EU delivers on SDG 9 using a collaborative approach. For example, the European Research and Innovation Days is the European Commission’s annual flagship R&I event, bringing together policymakers, researchers, entrepreneurs and the public to debate and shape the future of research and innovation in Europe and beyond.

The high-level expert group on the economic and societal impact of research and innovation (ESIR) provides evidence-based policy advice to the Commission on how to develop a forward-looking and transformative research and innovation policy. Its 16 experts provide independent advice on how EU research and innovation policy can best support the transformation of our economy and society throughout the social, green and digital transitions.

The EU Industrial Forum is the main platform for discussing industry challenges and co-developing opportunities and policy responses in an inclusive dialogue with a wide range of stakeholders, including social and environmental partners. It informs industrial policies at European, national, regional and local levels and ensures that a coherent framework is in place for European industry to deliver sustainable jobs, growth and innovation in Europe. The EU Industry Days remain the EU flagship event for industry and a valuable moment for discussion with a variety of stakeholders.

The  Connecting Europe Days  brings together stakeholders involved in infrastructure development so to discuss transport and mobility and their role in achieving the ambitious goals set out in the EU Green Deal and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. The next edition of the event will take place in early 2024, with discussions focused on the implementation of the revised TEN-T policy and the financial means needed to complete the core TEN-T network by 2030.

The Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), a support network for SMEs across the EU, provides a dedicated package of tailored services to help individual SMEs with a proven record of success to innovate and grow both within the EU and beyond. It is made up of more than 450 partner organisations in more than 40 countries, including chambers of commerce, innovation or enterprise agencies, regional development agencies, SME organisations, research institutes and technology centres. The EEN has recently introduced dedicated Sustainability Advisors to help SMEs make a successful transition to sustainability while growing internationally.

Horizon Impact Award is a European Commission initiative to recognise and celebrate outstanding projects that have used their results to provide value for society.

Horizon Prizes are challenge prizes (also known as inducement prizes) offering a cash reward to whoever can most effectively meet a defined challenge. The aim is to stimulate innovation and come up with solutions to problems that matter to European citizens.

The European Capital of Innovation Awards  (iCapital) is an annual recognition prize awarded to the European cities that best promote innovation in their communities.

Multi-level approach

SDG delivery requires ambitious action at all levels. Some good practices in implementing SDG 9 are set out below.

At national level, Poland has launched the Clean Air Priority Program (CAPP) in 2020 with the aim to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions of dust and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Through the programme, funding is granted to replace old solid fuel domestic stoves and boilers and modernise the heating systems of single-family houses. The programme earmarks more than 100 billion PLN and is implemented by local municipalities processing requests and awarding the subsidies to beneficiaries.

At local level, the city of Braga in Portugal created Startup Braga, its innovation hub, to support entrepreneurship with global ambition. The hub helps entrepreneurs in the creation, incubation and acceleration of start-ups, mainly in the areas of digital economy, health technologies, nanotechnology, biotechnology and sustainability. It is also giving access to a wide range of partners, mentors and investors. The hub’s community now has 190 start-ups, responsible for the creation of more than 1 000 jobs, and has raised more than EUR 375 million in investment.

EU external action

Global trends

Infrastructure sits at the crossroads of many different sectors, from transport to digital transformation and from climate mitigation to green energy. It is an important element of the EU Global Gateway strategy. According to G20 estimates, the global infrastructure investment deficit will reach EUR 13 trillion by 2040. While mobile broadband communication has been a significant success story across most regions, some gaps in the poorest regions remain. The global manufacturing industry has progressed unevenly across different regions and countries, and its value added stagnated in the least developed countries following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Internal/external coherence including policy coherence for development

The EU’s efforts towards SDG 9 also have important positive spin-off and synergetic effects. These particularly concern innovation that can benefit Europe and its partner countries alike, in areas such as sustainable infrastructure, transport, industrial transition, agricultural research and digital transformation.

In terms of positive externalities, Galileo and Copernicus have been instrumental in reinforcing and creating more resilient and efficient infrastructure across the EU, and EU space data is also being used to support innovation. This is combined with cooperation projects such as the creation of a regional Copernicus centre in Panama , which – through earth observation – will lead to mutual benefits for the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean countries in the areas of climate change mitigation and adaptation, food security, tracking of emissions and disaster risk reduction.

In addition, the EU's Global Approach to Research and Innovation encourages global cooperation across a whole range of thematic areas and across a wide array of non-EU countries. It does this by financing programmes such as Horizon Europe , which associate research bodies from EU countries with low and middle-income partner countries for R&I projects benefiting partner countries. Openness is a staple of the R&I framework programme, where non-EU countries are encouraged to participate and are treated on an equal footing as EU countries in terms of access to funding once an association agreement has been signed. 

EU and Member States external financial support for SDG implementation and results

In 2021, EU institutions reported to OECD commitments of EUR 5.8 billion in projects contributing to SDG 9. The main share of the EU contribution to SDG 9 is accounted for projects that target SDG 9 as the main SDG. These projects also contribute to other interlinked SDGs, with the largest contributions going to SDGs 8, 11, 13 and 17. Projects targeting other SDGs also contribute to SDG 9 as a significant objective. The main contributors are projects related to SDGs 1, 3 and 8. When taking into account other official flows, private funds mobilized through public intervention and support to international public goods, the Total Official Support to Sustainable Development (TOSSD) of the EU to SDG 9 amounted to EUR 12.3 billion in 2021. In terms of selected results of assistance, 25  79 000 km of roads were supported by the EU through construction, rehabilitation and maintenance in the period 2018-2021.

Collectively, the EU and those Member States that reported on SDGs to the OECD in 2021 contributed EUR 8 billion to SDG 9. EU and Member State flows to SDG 9 predominantly focused on projects in Africa (49%), Asia (21%) and other countries in Europe (16%).

Main policy orientations and initiatives for external engagement

The roll-out of the Global Gateway  strategy is particularly relevant for the achievement of SDG 9. With sustainable and high-quality projects in the field of infrastructure, the EU is aiming to enhance the resilience and connectivity of its partner countries while enabling closer cooperation through sustainable, smart infrastructures. The EU aims to mobilise investments of up to EUR 300 billion between 2021 and 2027across different sectors reflecting the cross-cutting nature of SDG 9, notably digital infrastructure and transport, climate and energy, transport, health, education and research. The Global Gateway strategy follows a Team Europe approach and supports global infrastructure development in accordance with the key EU principles of democratic values, good governance and transparency and the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investments, which the EU endorsed in 2019.

The Global Gateway strategy will support development of a framework to promote high social, environmental and governance standards, taking full account of climate change impacts, the transition to low-carbon economies, and financial sustainability and transparency, thereby contributing to a range of interrelated SDGs.

In this context and, in line with partner countries’ own policies and plans to achieve SDG 9, the EU’s priorities are:

·creating climate-resilient and sustainable infrastructure, including transport corridors and improved urban infrastructure; and 

·ensuring inclusive and human-centred digital connectivity, including the roll-out and expansion of fibre-optic cables, especially in unserved areas, and the digitalisation of businesses.

Out of the EUR 300 billion in investments targeted under Global Gateway, Africa could benefit from at least EUR 150 million. On the margins of the EU-AU Summit, the 2022 Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package was unveiled as one of the key areas of investment and focus. The 11 strategic transport corridors in Africa for increased mobility and trade aim to contribute to expanding internet access through fibre-optic connections, and to fostering satellite-based connectivity. Further, through the EU-AU Data Flagship Initiative, support is provided to develop green data centres to encourage progress towards a data economy in Africa.

Broadly, the EU will support African governments and their national and regional authorities in their efforts to ensure a well-regulated ICT ecosystem that fosters telecommunications investments and to protect end-users. Science, technology and innovation in Africa will be supported through partnerships with African regional centres of excellence, collaboration on earth observation and space technologies, and a joint AU-EU innovation agenda. Business development, with a focus on young people and women, is also an important part of the Africa-Europe Investment Package. As part of the Invest in Young Businesses in Africa initiative, the EU will implement up to 180 programmes aiming to help young African businesses to flourish. These programmes are expected to facilitate access to finance and improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Furthermore, as part of its Economic and Investment Plans, the EU has extended its Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) to the Western Balkans, Türkyie, and the Eastern Partnership region, thereby fostering sustainable mobility.

Additionally, the EU is cooperating with the US under the Trade and Technology Council to support secure and resilient digital connectivity and information and communication technology and services (ICTS) supply chains in third countries, provided by trusted suppliers. After the creation of a dedicated taskforce on this issue, the EU and the US announced their support to inclusive ICTS projects in Jamaica and Kenya based on the common overarching principles. In addition, under the G7, the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment was launched to help partner countries create the essential infrastructure to better navigate global shocks such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Examples of EU actions (with a focus on Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives)

EU actions on SDG 9 also contribute to the achievement of other SDGs in Europe and the world.

In illustration, the ‘Green Economy in Senegal’ Team Europe initiative, contributing to the Global Gateway investment priorities on digitalisation in relation to SDG 9, is closely linked to SDGs 8, 11 (Sustainable Cities) and 15 (Life on Land). It aims to strengthen convergence between agro-industries, green agriculture, communications and services in the most important agro-ecological regions of Senegal and to improve the living conditions of people living in urban areas.