According to the UN’s 2026 Sustainable Development Report, Armenia was the top-ranked state in the Caucasus at 47th, followed by Azerbaijan (52nd) and Georgia (61st), Eurasianet reports.

The UN report gave Armenia plaudits for meeting the target for reducing inequality, while expressing concern over environmental degradation in the country.

The report notes that the established targets, originally intended to be met by 2030, will not be reached within that timeframe.

“The goals are highly ambitious and will not be achieved. … Yet they have spurred action and inspired governments to take on large and complex challenges,” the report states.

According to the report, the chief lesson learned over the past decade is that peace is a prerequisite for sustainable development.

“Without peace, none of the other transformations are possible,” the report states. “War destroys infrastructure, displaces populations, diverts resources, weakens and breaks the institutions through which transformation is implemented, and poisons the political relationships across which cooperation must flow. War hollows out the moral architecture on which the SDGs [sustainable development goals] rest.”