[ANALYSIS] Key Findings from Malaysia's SDG Indicators Report 2024

SYFCOM
Dec 18, 2025
5 min read

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 - The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) has published on Wednesday, December 17, 2025, the 7^thedition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Indicators Malaysia Report 2024.

This comprehensive assessment acts as the national focal point for SDG indicator development, highlights significant national progress, underscores a robust institutional framework, and sets the foundation for future national planning efforts, including the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP)

Expanding Data Coverage and Governance

The global SDG framework encompasses 251 indicators (234 unique). Focusing on the 244 indicators deemed relevant to its national context, Malaysia achieved an impressive overall data availability status of 82% (205 indicators) in 2024, up from just 41% (99 indicators) in 2018. At the state level, data availability reached 84% for state-level monitoring and 26 indicators at the administrative district level.

The data underpinning this report are relatively diversified, primarily relying on administrative data, which accounts for 70% (147 indicators), followed by survey data (14% or 30 indicators), global SDG datasets (12% or 24 indicators) while 2% (4 indicators) were obtained from geospatial data.

In this context, institutional effectiveness is ensured by a reinforced National SDG Governance Structure, approved in November 2023 and chaired by the Prime Minister. The National SDG Centre (PSN), established officially under the Ministry of Economy in August 2023, coordinates the agenda, supports effective governance, and acts as the secretariat for key committees where each SDG goals are assigned to a designated Lead Ministry. In line with these efforts, the administration has adopted a WONA (Whole-of-Nation Approach) strategy to ensure coherent policy implementation and accountability of all goals across all sectors of society.

Performance in Key Focus Areas (2023–2024)

Achievements across five major focus areas were detailed - People, Prosperity, Planet, Peace, and Partnership. Some notable progress includes:

People (Goals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

SDG1.2.1: Incidence of absolute poverty, measured by household data, saw a reduction from 6.2% in 2022 to 5.1% in 2024.
SDG3.2.1: Under-5 mortality rate saw a slight rise, moving from 8.3 per 1,000 live births in 2023 to 8.7 in 2024. However, the density of doctors showed notable improvement, reaching 24.7 per 10,000 population in 2024, compared to 21.4 in 2023.
SDG4.2.2: Preschool participation rate rose marginally to 89.6% in 2024 (from 88.3% in 2023). ICT skills among youth and adults continue to be robust, with the proportion of youths and adults using computers by type of ICT skills increasing in all measured categories from 2023 to 2024.
SDG5.5.2: Proportion of women in managerial positions increased from 25.4% in 2023 to 27.1% in 2024. Women’s representation in the Senate also improved, rising from 16.1% to 18.6%. Digital access remained consistently high for both male and female, with 98.4% of individuals owning a mobile phone in 2024.

Prosperity (Goals 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

SDG8.5.2: Overall unemployment rate showed a slight decrease, settling at 3.3% in 2024 compared to 3.4% in 2023 while mean monthly salaries and wages for employees (SDG8.5.1) also improved, moving from RM3,441 in 2023 to RM3,652 in 2024.
Malaysia is pursuing clean transition strategies, aligning with its commitment to increase renewable energy to 70% of installed capacity by 2050. Installed renewable energy capacity per capita (SDG7.b.1) increased to 301.7 watts in 2023 (preliminary data), up from 278.5 in 2022.
Infrastructure saw mobile network coverage expand, with the 4G network (SDG 9.c.1) coverage reaching 98.7% of the population and the high-speed 5G network covering 82.4% in 2024. Transportation also saw increased activity (SDG9.1.2) with both air and rail transport reflecting increase in number of passengers.
Efforts aimed at reduced inequalities (SDG 10) highlight that the redistributive impact of fiscal policy, measured using the Gini coefficient for disposable income per capita, improved slightly from 0.417 in 2022 to 0.406 in 2024.

Planet and Peace/Partnership (Goals 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)

SDG6.3.2: 97.2% of monitored water bodies maintaining good ambient water quality in 2024, slightly higher than the previous year (96.5% in 2023). Progress in water resource management (IWRM) (SDG6.5.1) also showed a consistently rising national score, reaching 73.0 in 2023 (up from 43.0 in 2017 and 63.0 in 2020), supported by strengthened policies and inter-agency collaboration. Meanwhile, the national recycling rate saw an encouraging rise to 37.9% in 2024 from 35.4% in 2023.
Unfortunately, Malaysia recorded a worrying increase in the number of deaths attributed to disasters per 100,000 (SDG13.1.1), rising from 9 persons in 2023 to 15 persons in 2024. Life on Land (SDG 15) indicates that wildlife crime cases related to keeping/using protected species (SDG 15.7.1/15.c.1) slightly decreased to 2,918 cases in 2024 from 2,937 in 2023.
In terms of institutional strength and peace, the percentage of unsentenced detainees within the overall prison population (SDG 16.3.2) rose to 35.2% in 2024 (from 33.0% in 2023) implying a larger proportion of prisoners are being held without a final court judgment, which is generally not a favorable indicator in most scenarios. On a positive note, the homicide rate decreased to 0.7 per 100,000 population in 2024 compared to 0.8 in 2023.

Strategic Direction

Malaysia’s approach to achieving the SDGs is firmly embedded within its national policy framework, notably through the implementation of the SDG Roadmap Phase 2 (2021–2025). The country actively participates in international and regional platforms, with the administration submitting its third Voluntary National Review (VNR) to the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July 2025 and playing an proactive role in the ASEAN Working Group on SDG Indicators (WGSDGI) including the recent hosting of WGSDGI8 in August 2025, in conjunction with Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship in 2025. WGSDGI8 saw notable progress such as the finalization of agreement on the ASEAN Statistical Indicators Core Set (ASI-CT) and presentation on the pilot study for Small Area Estimation (SAE).^[1]

The robust data collection mechanism led by DOSM allows for targeted interventions to address disparities, ensuring that progress reaches all levels of society, especially states and districts where uneven development remains a challenge. The report confirms Malaysia’s use of high-quality, disaggregated data - at most times categorized by state, gender, age, and strata - crucial for achieving the foundational SDG principle of "leaving no one behind". This systematic and transparent data-driven strategy confirms Malaysia's position as a leading nation in monitoring and promoting sustainable development efforts worldwide.

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^[1] Small Area Estimation (SAE) is a set of statistical methods used to produce reliable estimates for small geographic areas or sub-populations (e.g. districts, municipalities, age groups) when survey data alone are too sparse or unreliable. It allows policymakers to see local realities clearly—even when local data are weak - by combining surveys, administrative data, and statistical models.