August 10 2025
Susan G. Angus
Executive Committee President
Commission on Voluntary Service & Action (CVSA)
Angussusan2030@gmail.com

Submission of Paper 
X Conference on Strategic Studies, CIPI
October 1-3, 2025

 Title:  The 2025 U.S. People’s Report on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Abstract:
The United States was among 193 nations that voted unanimously on September 25, 2015 for the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which was the outcome of more than two decades of debate that began with the first Earth Summit held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro.
	The 2030 SDGs are intended to be a road map for each nation to adopt and adapt as its own, to accomplish transformative systemic change in economic, social, and environmental policies, that ends poverty in all its forms and to save the planet’s ability to sustain life. It is written as a complete break from the forms of so-called development and foreign aid by countries of the north to countries of the south. The 17 Goals are meant to be carried out by and in each country – developed and developing. 
	After ten years of inaction and silence on the SDGs domestically as policy, since March 4, 2025, U.S. government representatives have been announcing in the conference halls of the UN that the U.S. government “rejects and denounces” the 2030 SDGs, claiming they are “inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans.” The opposite is true for 99% of Americans.
	In the U.S., the gap between the very rich and the rest of the people is growing wider. The rejection of the SDGs isolates the U.S. in relation to the international community, where the leaders of developing nations and their allies are more united than ever in tackling the problems of poverty, global warming and the destruction of life on Earth through multilateral cooperation to implement the 2030 SDGs. The position that the SDGs are “inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans” as announced by U.S. government representatives is beyond rationality and reason, when the opposite is true. 
	At present the U.S. government maintains a military spending budget larger than the next nine nations combined, while the U.S. infrastructure is falling apart, the health of the population is deteriorating, there is a nationwide crisis of too little affordable, decent housing, and the U.S. continues to be one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gasses that are destroying the natural balance of our planet’s atmosphere. The U.S., as one of the most advanced industrial nations in the world, and with the largest economy by some measures, bears a heavy burden to change course from being a rogue, pariah nation to one that sets a positive example within our own borders by achieving these Goals and involving all stakeholders in the process, for other countries to look to the U.S. as a source of leadership in the world. 
This transformative change will only be accomplished through organization of the people in the U.S. who are suffering from the lack of accomplishing these Goals and who need and want change.
In our work of promoting voluntary service and action in the U.S. and internationally, Commission on Voluntary Service & Action (CVSA) assists nongovernment grassroots organizations working for the systemic solutions needed to solve the economic, social and environmental problems faced in their communities. In July of this year, CVSA published its third annual U.S. People’s Report on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on conditions in the U.S. in relation to the SDGs. CVSA produced this People’s Report in the context of the U.S. government failing to ever produce and submit to the High Level Political Forum at the UN a Voluntary National Review of its progress in implementation of the SDGs, one of only three member nations of the UN to have failed to ever do so.

Presentation:

	The United States was among 193 nations that voted unanimously on September 25, 2015 for the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, known as the SDGs, which was the outcome of more than two decades of debate beginning with the first Earth Summit held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, attended by President Fidel Castro as well as President George H. Bush and other heads of state with thousands of civil society, indigenous, women’s and other nongovernmental groupings. After the second Earth Summit held in 2012 and three subsequent years of debates, round tables and surveys around the world, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Goals were brought to the UN General Assembly in September 2015. They are intended to be a road map for each nation to adopt and adapt as its own, to accomplish transformative systemic change in economic, social, and environmental policies, to end poverty in all its forms and to save the planet’s ability to sustain life. It is written as a complete break from the forms of so-called development and foreign aid by countries of the north to countries of the south. The 17 Goals are meant to be carried out in each country – developed and developing. 
Once the 2030 SDGs were adopted by the historic unanimous General Assembly vote at the UN in New York, despite voting “Yes” with the other 192 countries, in the U.S. there were never any public service announcements about the SDGs, no banners, billboards, commercials, talk show discussions or any other form of publicity in the U.S. emanating from the federal government about the promise to work towards the 2030 SDGs at home or abroad, no call for all stakeholders to participate in planning and monitoring, much less any steps taken to begin work on them. The U.S. mainstream media was silent in regard to this global commitment. The topic of the SDGs was absent from political campaign speeches. No coordinating councils were established at the federal level. Most people in the U.S. have still not heard of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals after ten years. 
And for most people familiar with the U.S. – none of this was a surprise.
However, since December 2015, Commission on Voluntary Service & Action – CVSA – has carried out a grassroots, nationwide community education campaign for the implementation of the 2030 SDGs. As an entirely volunteer organization, CVSA has been dedicated for over 75 years to the promotion, interpretation, coordination and extension of the field of independent voluntary service and action programs for serving people and communities in need of systemic solutions to the social, economic and environmental problems faced by communities across the U.S. We represent over 200 organizations that have been described in our periodic publication INVEST YOURSELF: A Guide to Action, a catalogue of volunteer opportunities. 
We have seen that people throughout the U.S. have been and are initiating local and regional action for the achievement of the SDGs – including university professors and their students, business leaders, clergy, many local elected officials and some state officials, as well as the leaders and volunteers of hundreds of grassroots organizations. 
And now, these actions are in contradiction with the announced policy of the U.S. federal government.
Now, after ten years of public silence on the matter by the federal government, beginning March 4, 2025, U.S. government representatives have been announcing in the conference halls of the UN that the U.S. government “rejects and denounces” the 2030 SDGs, claiming they are “inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans.” This declaration has not been uttered in public to the American people, only in the conference halls of the UN. If announced publicly, U.S. government officials would then have to explain to the American people what these Goals are that they claim we don’t want! 
In the U.S., the gap between the very rich and the rest of the people is growing wider. The rejection of the SDGs isolates the U.S. in relation to the international community, where the leaders of developing nations and their allies are more united than ever in tackling the problems of poverty, global warming and the destruction of life on earth through multilateral cooperation to implement the 2030 SDGs. The position that the SDGs are “inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans” as announced by U.S. government representatives is beyond rationality and reason, when the opposite is true for 99% of all Americans. 
	At present the U.S. government maintains a military spending budget larger than the next nine nations combined, while the U.S. infrastructure is falling apart, the health of the population is deteriorating, there is a nationwide crisis of too little affordable, decent housing, and the U.S. continues to be one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gasses that are destroying the natural balance of our planet’s atmosphere. The U.S., as one of the most advanced industrial nations in the world, and with the largest economy by some measures, bears a heavy burden to change course and set a positive example within our own borders by achieving these Goals and involving all stakeholders in the process, for other countries to look to the U.S. as a source of leadership in the world. But this transformative change will only be accomplished through organization of the people in the U.S. who are suffering from the lack of achieving these Goals and who need and want change. 
A contingent of CVSA organizers and volunteers attended the 2025 High Level Political Forum at the UN in New York in July with an exhibit from which we distributed over 220 copies of the  2025 U.S. Peoples Report on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals to international civil society diplomatic representatives, as well as UN staff, who expressed their appreciation to learn there are people in the U.S. supporting the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. This Report is compiled by the Commission on Voluntary Service & Action and is the product of reports to CVSA volunteers from leaders of nongovernmental community-based organizations across the country actively engaged in serving communities in need. We issued this report, to continue our commitment to all our member organizations and to the 192 nations that remain resolute in striving to implement the SDGs, despite this year’s pronouncement by the U.S. government that it rejects and denounces the 2030 Agenda. It is designed to be an educational working tool and an inspiration to action. It is meant to be used by people in the U.S. building solutions and fighting for a world in which all people can live in dignity, free of poverty and in a healthy, sustainable environment. This was the third annual U.S. People’s Report on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development compiled by CVSA, and we are committed to producing one each year. CVSA began producing this People’s Report in the context of the U.S. government failing to ever produce and submit to the High Level Political Forum a Voluntary National Review of its progress in implementation of the SDGs domestically, one of only three member nations of the UN to have failed to ever do so.
The U.S. did not participate in the 2025  High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development until the 10th and last day, solely for the purpose of voting against the final declaration of the Forum. 
CVSA also held a side event during this year’s 2025 High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, titled “A Call for U.S. Leadership for the 2030 SDGs,” to gather others as a demonstration of solidarity with the 192 nations of the UN, to implement the SDGs despite U.S. government rejection of them. Forty-two people came to our event, representing over a dozen volunteer service and advocacy organizations, most of them youth. All of them signed up to join with CVSA in expanding the campaign to promote and fight for the 2030 SDGs to be implemented in the U.S.
In this report, one of the Goals focused on is Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Our report provides data on why the Goal is needed in the U.S. and provides the solutions in the form of a list of policy changes required to achieve the Goal. In the U.S., the decline in overall health and the growing obstacles to accessing health care by children, working men and women, and people with disabilities or on low fixed incomes in the United States, are more alarming each year. Life expectancy in the U.S. is down. Non-communicable diseases are up. The U.S. spends the most on health care of any other developed peer nation, with the worst outcomes for the majority of the people. And more working people in the U.S. are losing their health and lives due to more frequent and deadly climate-related disasters. Goal 3 is one of the most critically needed of the 17 Goals for the people of the U.S.
Another Goal focused on in the report is Goal 17, which calls for an increase in international cooperation and solidarity between nations and sharing of resources necessary to make the other 16 Goals possible. Goal 17 has 19 targets in the categories of Finance of official development assistance commitments; Technology; Capacity-building; Trade; and Systemic issues such as “Enhance the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries, in particular developing countries” and “Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships.”
As the U.S. heightens its approach of attempting to bully other countries into compliance with economic policies that are counter to those countries’ interests, the U.S. government rejects the very premise Goal 17 stands on, and increasingly shuns and violates international multilateral cooperation and international law and agreements.
While the U.S. continues to act with disregard for the necessity of building cooperation among nations and for the true historic and long-term interests of the majority of the people in the U.S., there are many sub-national partnerships by cities, counties and states as well as international professional associations and business associations based in the U.S. that will continue to engage in positive and productive international relations focused on the achievement of one or more of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. These efforts need to keep growing. 
In our work of promoting voluntary service and action in the U.S. and internationally, CVSA assists nongovernment grassroots organizations working for the systemic solutions needed to solve the economic, social and environmental problems faced in their communities. CVSA will continue to promote the SDGs through our quarterly newsletter ITEMS FOR ACTION; through speaking engagements, workshops and information booths; in meetings with educators; through talks delivered to college classrooms, churches, temples, professional and business associations and all manner of leaders within community-based, volunteer-driven organizations. The voices of a cross-section of all these constituencies are represented in CVSA’s U.S. People’s Report. 
CVSA was founded 1945, directly after the Second World War, to recruit and send American volunteers, in people-to-people exchanges with no U.S. government funding, to help people of Europe rebuild their homes and communities out of the rubble. CVSA sought to build friendship among nations to prevent the scourge of fascism from ever rising again and promote peace and prosperity for all people. That work is certainly not finished and CVSA will do its part to organize and fight for the accomplishment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the U.S. and the world toward that end. We are an all-volunteer, cadre-based organization able to relate to and ally with many other nongovernmental organizations and provide tactical and strategic leadership to those who invite us to advise them and to continue to save lives and achieve real change in the U.S.
CVSA will continue to reach out to all nongovernmental grassroots organizations and nonprofits serving people and communities in need, student groups, professional and business associations, environmental and social justice organizations, to join us in bringing the 2030 SDGs to the people of the U.S. and to take action to demand the 2030 SDGs are carried out in the U.S. and in cooperation with other nations.
I have some copies of the 2025 U.S. People’s Report with me for anyone interested who can use it in their work.

Thank you.