Abstract
Amid uneven SDG progress and overlapping crises, efforts to deliver sustainable development that leaves no one behind continue to face persistent, intersecting barriers—even where commitments are strong. Consider, for example, the experience of a woman with a disability in an informal settlement: she cannot afford assistive devices, faces inaccessible infrastructure, encounters weak enforcement of rules, experiences hiring bias and may struggle to evacuate during an earthquake. This scenario shows how multiple barriers converge to deepen exclusion. This policy brief highlights five dimensions where exclusion is often observed—affordability, access, governance, participation and external shocks, among others—and illustrates how governments are responding in each through policy examples and observations. Insights are drawn from 2024–2025 country implementation updates from thirteen countries that announced commitments at the 2023 SDG Summit, as well as 2025 Voluntary National Review (VNR) reports from three additional countries3 with such commitments. The analysis is intended to inform global policy discussions, including, as relevant, the World Social Summit under the title Second World Summit for Social Development.
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