SDG Index: Debt, AI gaps test Arab path to 2030

QASIM AL MAASHANI
The Arab region received an overall score of 60.5 out of 100 on the 2025 Arab Region SDG Index, while 14 of the 22 Arab League member states did not receive a single green rating across the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, data presented in Salalah on Tuesday showed.
Dr Mahmoud Mohieldin, United Nations Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Agenda, cited the findings while addressing the opening day of the 25th Annual General Conference on “Government Readiness for a Sustainable Future”.
He said governments were confronting interconnected pressures from artificial intelligence, climate change and public debt, requiring them to manage the links between policy, financing, technology, institutional capacity and risk rather than addressing each challenge separately.
The three-day conference opened under the auspices of Dr Mahad bin Said Baowain, Minister of Labour, in the presence of a number of senior officials, alongside representatives of government institutions and the private sector.
The event is organised by the Arab Administrative Development Organisation, an affiliate of the League of Arab States, in cooperation with Oman’s Ministry of Labour and runs until August 13.
The 2025 Arab Region SDG Index, prepared by the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, covers all 22 Arab League member states.
Its score is a composite measure of progress towards the 17 goals, rather than a count of how many goals have been completed. The index is designed as a complementary analytical tool and is not an official United Nations monitoring mechanism.
The report found that all Arab countries received a red rating on Goal 5, which covers gender equality, indicating major challenges across the region. It also recorded a gap of about 28 points between Tunisia, the highest-ranked Arab country and Somalia, the lowest-ranked.
Mohieldin said government readiness increasingly depended on how countries responded to disruptive forces that could either accelerate development or deepen existing inequalities.
The International Monetary Fund’s AI Preparedness Index, which covers 174 economies, recorded an average score of 0.68 for advanced economies, compared with 0.46 for emerging markets and 0.32 for low-income countries.
The average index score for advanced economies was therefore more than double that of low-income countries, highlighting substantial differences in their capacity to benefit from artificial intelligence.
Mohieldin argued that purchasing ready-made applications did not in itself constitute AI readiness. Preparedness required digital infrastructure, reliable data, investment in human capital, responsive labour-market policies, innovation, economic integration, regulation and ethical safeguards.
Debt pressures presented a second major constraint. UN Trade and Development figures showed that global public debt reached a record $102 trillion in 2024, with developing countries accounting for about $31 trillion.
Net interest payments by developing countries rose by 10 per cent in one year to a record $921 billion, while 61 developing countries allocated more than 10 per cent of government revenue to interest payments.
Since 2020, developing regions have also borrowed at rates two to four times those in the United States, raising the cost of financing development and limiting the fiscal space available for public investment.
The financing pressure has been compounded by a decline in external assistance. According to preliminary OECD data, official development assistance from Development Assistance Committee members and associates fell by 23.1 per cent in real terms in 2025 to $174.3 billion — the largest annual contraction on record.
Climate change formed the third major disruptive force identified in the presentation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people live in contexts highly vulnerable to climate change, while roughly half of the world’s population experiences severe water scarcity during at least part of the year.
The risks extend across water supplies, agriculture and food security, public health and essential infrastructure, requiring governments to pursue adaptation and mitigation simultaneously.
Mohieldin’s presentation illustrated how an initial energy shock could spread through transport and food costs, contribute to inflation, increase public debt pressures, affect labour markets and ultimately undermine social stability.
He called for governments to move beyond isolated responses and adopt integrated national financing frameworks linking development planning with public budgets, domestic resources, debt management, public and private investment, blended finance and climate finance.
The central test of government readiness, he argued, was not simply whether institutions possessed new technologies or individual policies, but whether they could coordinate policy, financing and institutional responses across interconnected risks.