The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provided brand new goals and action targets for human well-being and development, but the COVID-19 pandemic has cast a shadow on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is therefore essential to provide a reference for making policy adjustments and transformations to promote the realization of SDGs in the post-pandemic era. Based on a literature review of the progress and policies of SDGs across countries worldwide, we find that research on sustainable policies has rapidly increased since the SDGs issued in 2015 with particular focuses on eco-environment, sustainable policies, green economy, sanitation and health, and water sanitation. Most countries are in the process of nationalization, institutionalization, and universalization of the SDGs through incorporating the SDGs into national development frameworks, enabling extensive participation and negotiation mechanisms, and promoting the SDGs’ national publicity. Countries of different economic and institutional backgrounds demonstrate divergent development pathways, priorities, measures, and progress in the implementation of SDGs. Despite significant global progress during the last five years, the North–South divide emerges in the policy action and achievement of SDGs. The least developed countries in sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia appear to be difficult or even unable to implement the SDGs and monitor the progress. In the post-pandemic era, particular attention shall be given to integrating SDGs and achieve synergy among goals, concretizing short-and medium-term priorities toward the SDGs targets for all countries, strengthening multilateralism and global cooperation among countries and continents, providing reliable data and approaches for real-time impact assessment and process monitoring, and promoting an inclusive engagement and integrative implementation with multiple stakeholders and consortiums.

Regional sustainable development is a complex process driven by multiple factors, such as the economy, society, and environment. China has made a series of major adjustments and devised plans, including the establishment of a pilot free-trade zone, to promote regional sustainable development. The pilot free-trade zone, characterized by free trade and the opening up of institutions, changes the path and mode of regional sustainable development to a certain extent. However, an effective empirical quantitative analysis to verify the impact of the pilot free-trade zone on regional sustainable development is lacking. This paper employs the system dynamics method to predict the social–economic–environmental development trends and key control factors of the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration by considering the unique advantages of system dynamics. The construction of a pilot free-trade zone was set as a control variable to analyze its promoting effect on regional sustainable development. Next, the most suitable model for sustainable development for the future was determined. The results indicate that the construction of the pilot free-trade zone led to significant growth in indicators such as import and export trade, total economic volume, income, and labor force, all of which are conducive to regional sustainable development. Practically, the simulation results provide decision support for promoting the sustainable development of the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration.