The world is NOT on track to meet many of the United Nations' sustainable development goals by the deadline of 2030. This comes in an assessment by the UN. Progress is lacking especially in the fight to end hunger and poverty. Advocacy groups say the means to measure gains have been wholly inadequate. CGTN UN correspondent Liling Tan reports.

AMINA MOHAMMED UN DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL "Ladies and gentlemen, we have 12 years to realize the sustainable development goals. The clock is ticking."

The UN in 2015 set 17 ambitious goals to reach by the year 2030, from fighting climate change to ending poverty and hunger, from promoting education and gender equality to providing safe water and affordable clean energy. But crucial targets remain out of reach.

BECKIE MALAY NGO MAJOR GROUP ORGANIZING PARTNER FOR ASIA "We are off-track because the policies are not there, the policies are not right. And there is no political will in many of the countries to put this on track, in fact. So the commitment is not there maybe because there is no sanction when you don't do the SDGs, so it's an issue."

World hunger appears on the rise again, with nearly one in 10 people in the world facing starvation. Poverty still persists in pockets, especially in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where more than half of the world's extreme poor live.

SENA ALOUKA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR YOUNG VOLUNTEERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, TOGO "We're not going to put half of the population that are living on a dollar a day to the modern world in 2030. That's not going to happen. We're not probably going to have as we wish climate change from an Africa perspective, and when it comes to justice, when it comes to human rights issues, I'm afraid we're not going to make it also."

LILING TAN NEW YORK "One of the most striking challenges is in connecting the dots in how to communicate the importance of the sustainable development goals to the world, and how to help individual governments integrate the SDGs into their country's planning and policies."

That's where Senegal is creating some buzz, using a new measurement tool called the iSDG model developed by the Millennium Institute.

MAHI AMADOU, ECONOMIST OFFICE OF MINISTRY FOR ECONOMICS, FINANCE & PLANNING, SENEGAL "We can clearly define our goals yearly and the investments needed to get there. And I think this is really powerful."

The model may help address criticism by dozens of NGOs who say that not only is progress lacking, so too are the tools to set goals and measure gains. Liling Tan, CGTN, New York.