The world is lagging in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030, and the COVID-19 pandemic is making it even harder, according to the report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

"We need better data to better understand the path we need to take to get to our destination," said FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero. "Knowing more about where we are and how slowly or quickly we are moving will help us focus our efforts and actions to target interventions to achieve SDGs."

The report titled Tracking Progress on Food and Agriculture-related SDG Indicators 2020 highlights that the health crisis brought about by COVID-19 globally, which has massive economic and social impacts, puts more challenge to achieve the SDG. The key findings indicated in the report include the following:

• - Global holdings of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture rose to 5.43 million in 2019, but efforts to secure crop diversity continue to be insufficient.
• - The number of livestock breeds with sufficient genetic material stored to allow them to be reconstituted in case of extinction rose 10-fold in the decade to 2019, but some 73% of the breeds are at risk of extinction.
• - Gender equality is far from realized and only 12% of assessed countries guarantee a very high degree of women's rights protection.
• - Both forests and the sustainability of global fish stocks continue to decline at a slower pace than before.
• - Government investment in agriculture, measured as a share of GDP, has declined globally by around a third since 2001, led by sharp drops - from high levels - in much of Asia.

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