LocationsClimate action and sustainable development: How integrated insights are driving breakthroughs
November 26, 2025
Across the world, countries are striving to deliver what people everywhere want: a decent job, a safe home, clean water, reliable energy and the chance to build a better life.
Development breakthroughs happen when progress in one area sparks advances in others; for instance, national investments in health improve education outcomes, improved waste management strengthens local economies, and increased social protection builds lasting resilience. These moments of transformation emerge when governments have the right data, partnerships and tools to make informed policy decisions that can deliver multiple development wins simultaneously.
That’s why UNDP launched SDG Push to help countries accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a landscape of interconnected goals showing how social, economic, and environmental systems overlap and depend on one another. SDG Push offers data and diagnostics to help partners identify development breakthroughs using the SDG landscape. It brings together data scientists, economists and policy planners to identify where national strategies are falling short and where the right mix of policies can drive sustainable development, leaving no one behind.
In his final address to the Executive Board earlier this year, former UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner underscored the scale of this collective effort:
“Our ‘SDG Push’... offers data and diagnostics to help partners identify trends and priorities in more than 100 countries.”
The five SDG Push pilot countries offer strong examples of impact:
- Indonesia policymakers through dialogue showed how investments in five priority areas focused on human capital, infrastructure and access to basic services could drive achievement of SDGs.
- Namibia presented forward-looking scenarios under the Balanced Economic Growth Strategy, highlighting policy options to drive growth and reduce poverty, inequality and unemployment.
- Peru consultations showed that public investment in infrastructure could significantly boost productivity (by 39.1% vs. BAU) and reduce poverty and underemployment.
- South Africa focused on job creation, reducing poverty and inequality, and tackling structural barriers, including through private-sector employment and skills-matching interventions.
- Moldova swiftly adapted the initiative to the energy crisis, supporting the nationwide energy-vulnerability compensation programme while advancing digital transformation as a core development enabler.
For governments, trends and priorities are shifting day by day. Across the world, climate shocks are testing the very foundations of development. Floods, droughts, and storms are undoing years of hard-won gains, disrupting livelihoods, and threatening stability. To sustain progress, development planning must adapt by linking economic, social, and environmental goals in ways that strengthen resilience and opportunity together.
With the approach of the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the deadline for countries to submit new and ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), UNDP is supporting 20 countries to turn their climate ambitions into engines of development through Integrated NDC x SDG Insights.
As part of UNDP’s Climate Promise 2025, the Integrated NDC x SDG Insights initiative serves as a key platform for working hand in hand with governments to identify development breakthroughs, where strategic climate investments can accelerate progress and improve lives.
Deep dive into development breakthroughs
Across the globe, countries are mapping NDC actions to SDG targets and national priorities, identifying co-benefits/trade-offs, and showing where policy, finance (especially with INFF) and delivery shifts can unlock faster, fairer progress. In this section, we unpack three areas of development breakthroughs identified across the NDC x SDG Insights Reports.
Development breakthrough #1: Climate-resilient basic services
Basic services are a foundation of sustainable development, ensuring that people have reliable access to water, energy, healthcare and education. When these systems are built to be climate resilient, they protect communities from disruption and safeguard years of social and economic progress. Coupled with training and local capacity building, they empower people to maintain, adapt and expand these services, driving long-term growth and resilience.
Cambodia: Climate-resilient basic services and infrastructure
Cambodia has set ambitious development goals including graduating from LDC status by 2029 in the evolution of its social contract that includes addressing vulnerabilities. These ambitious goals will require significant social and economic transformations including ensuring basic services are climate resilient.
People living along the Mekong River once felt helpless during floods that wiped out crops, homes and years of progress. Today, they are writing a different story.
UNDP empowers local leaders to plan ahead and respond effectively to floods and other hazards by combining training, participatory planning, and resilient infrastructure into a policy package that simultaneously advances climate goals while safeguarding access to essential services.
“I remember during a flood, a pregnant woman struggled to reach the health center. I had to call a relative to borrow a boat,” recalls local Deputy Governor, Mr. Sam Bunthynn. “Now, with the new materials, training and infrastructure, our community is much better prepared.”
At the national level, the NDC x SDG Insights helped map how climate investments can also deliver social and economic gains. Strengthening transport, energy efficiency, and waste management were identified as key drivers of both resilience and growth. The report’s connections to the latest information on the finance mechanisms also supported the government in identifying and addressing existing funding roadblocks.
“Through the integration of national development priorities into climate planning, Cambodia can address urgent vulnerabilities, while advancing long-term goals such as job creation, infrastructure modernization, resilient and inclusive urban spaces and social equity,” says Mr. Enrico Gaveglia, UNDP Resident Representative in Cambodia.
Development breakthrough #2: Policy coherence across development and climate
Policy coherence stands at the very heart of effective national development planning and forms the critical foundation for realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As articulated through UNDP’s SDG Push framework, achieving transformative progress in the face of the climate crisis requires a strategic pivot away from fragmented planning.
In many national contexts, policy coherence demands the radical alignment of two traditionally separate streams: NDCs and the nation's broader development vision. When this alignment is achieved, governments gain the strategic advantage of eliminating duplicate or contradictory policies. The resulting clarity allows public resources to be directed toward integrated strategies, a defining feature of the UNDP’s NDC x SDG approach.
By ensuring investments serve both climate resilience and socioeconomic progress, countries can maximize returns by delivering a spectrum of multiple benefits, including:
- Greener growth and the creation of sustainable jobs.
- Strengthened social protection systems.
- More resilient societies and stronger institutions capable of enduring and preserving gains in a changing climate.
Liberia: Aligning national priorities
For Liberia, the Insights work revealed how multiple national plans could move in the same direction. Through the SDG Push Diagnostic and NDC x SDG Insights analysis, the government examined where its ARREST Agenda, National Adaptation Plan, Liberia National Biodiversity Action Plan and Mission 300 Energy Compact overlapped, and where they could better reinforce each other.
“We now have insights to back up the idea that climate action isn’t an add-on, it is the framework that makes our development work stronger. Every dollar invested in Liberia’s NDC is an investment into sustainable development,” says Emmanuel Urey Yarkpawolo, Director of the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia.
The findings highlighted renewable energy, forestry and climate-smart agriculture as key areas where small investments could unlock major opportunities for jobs in the country. With the support of the NDC x SDG Insights analysis, ministries are now tracking those linkages and aligning their policies and budgets accordingly.
“Through the NDC x SDG Insights initiative, Liberia is moving decisively from plans to performance. This collaboration with UNDP enables the country to prioritize climate actions that create jobs, strengthen resilience and improve livelihoods, ensuring our climate ambition delivers real and measurable development gains for the Liberian people," adds Aliou Mamadou Dia, UNDP Resident Representative in Liberia.
Development breakthrough #3: Renewable energy for development
Access to clean, affordable energy is a precondition for health, education and economic prosperity—an essential multiplier for all SDGs. Yet 1.18 billion people remain in energy poverty and unable to use electricity. At the same time, the global climate crisis demands a rapid shift away from fossil-fuel-based development. Reaching those furthest behind requires accelerating renewables through systems-level changes that deliver inclusive, green economies while driving deep emissions reductions.
When ambitious targets for electrification and renewable energy are paired with the SDG Push, the development gains multiply—potentially lifting 163 million people out of extreme poverty by 2050 and generating a productivity effect seven times greater than providing universal access alone. This system-level shift delivers a triple win: inclusive growth, climate resilience and long-term prosperity.
Dominican Republic: Renewable energy transition
In the Dominican Republic, the power sector is both a constraint and an immediate opportunity for economic transformation. Through the NDC x SDG Insights process, UNDP is supporting the government in the adoption of sustainable development modes, including through energy transition as a catalyst for development. This approach can deliver more affordable, cleaner and reliable electricity, while reinforcing fiscal sustainability and advancing both NDCs and SDGs.
"The NDC × SDG Insights provide us with a clear roadmap to integrate climate action into the Dominican Republic’s broader development agenda. By highlighting synergies and priority areas, the report allows us to make informed decisions that strengthen resilience, foster social inclusion, and support sustainable economic growth. This evidence-based approach ensures that our updated NDC is not only ambitious in reducing emissions but also aligned with the country’s long-term development goals," says Rosalía Duval, Head of Adaptation, National Council for Climate Change and Carbon Market of the Dominican Republic.
By 2036, the objective is to establish a modernized energy system that doubles electricity supply and drives inclusive growth while reducing import dependence, mitigating fiscal risks and attracting private investment, transforming climate ambition into tangible development outcomes.
“The NDC x SDG Insights report is a powerful tool that informs national decision-making, ensuring that climate and development priorities are aligned. This is, for example, evident in the energy sector, where advancing renewables and improving efficiency reduce emissions while driving innovation, competitiveness, energy autonomy, and better living conditions—building a more resilient and sustainable future for all,” adds Ana María Díaz, UNDP Dominican Republic Representative.
Through the NDC x SDG reports, UNDP connects the dots between development impacts and the financing needed to implement them. In the Dominican Republic the 2024 Green, Social and Sustainability Bond Framework provides an opportunity to mobilize capital for renewable energy and other climate-related investments, helping translate ambition into concrete, bankable projects.
The evidence is clear: the future success of national development hinges upon our ability to move beyond conventional policy silos. Policy coherence is not a luxury; it is the fundamental operating principle for achieving climate-resilient sustainable development.
As we look forward, the call to action is to institutionalize this approach. Governments must now pivot from conceptual discussions to the rigorous application of co-design, ensuring that NDCs and development plans are inseparable. By relentlessly pursuing this alignment, we can guarantee that every national investment delivers the multiple benefits required—jobs, growth, resilience—to fulfill the promise of the SDGs for all.
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