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What is the progress in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) post Covid-19?

The COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out 6 years of progress on the SDGs globally; the escalating conflicts and climate breakdowns are only adding fuel to the fire

 
By DTE Staff
Published: Friday 30 December 2022

According to the Sustainable Development Goal report 2022, the world is no longer making progress on the SDGs for the second year in a row.

The COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out 6 years of progress on the SDGs globally. The escalating conflicts and climate breakdowns are only adding fuel to the fire.

But all is not lost yet. Globally, $17 trillion USD was mobilized for the COVID-19 recovery, mainly in rich countries. Yet the question remains till what extent do such recovery funds support SDG transformations.

In a context of increased geopolitical rivalries and fragmented multilateralism, the SDGs remain the only comprehensive and universal vision for socioeconomic prosperity and environmental sustainability.

We have six parameters out of the 17 that the world can strategically push forward to make up for the lost years and to gain back the momentum. These are poverty, malnutrition, maternal mortality, education, sex ratio and water and sanitation.

If countries focus on these six of the 17 SDGs, they can turn the COVID-19 pandemic from a short-term crisis into long-term gains. The analysis compares 3 growth scenarios and confirms how better results can be achieved only with a strategic SDG push.

‘No COVID-19’ scenario describes economic growth without the impact of the pandemic. The ‘baseline COVID-19’ scenario represents significant pandemic-period increases in poverty and hunger and substantial longer-term negative consequences ‘SDGs Push’ scenario outlines the impact of targeted policy interventions that can accelerate progress towards a fairer, resilient and green future.

For example, poverty is one of the most predominant factors to tackle through SDGs. Bad enough, COVID-19 disrupted progress and pushed more people around the world into poverty and displacement.

The rate of poverty was 9.6 per cent at the start of 2020, instead of decreasing it by 0.1 per cent in a non-covid scenario, it shot up to 11.9 per cent by the end of the year.

But an SDG push can bring it down as low as 6.9 per cent by 2030, as compared to the 8.4 per cent if we let the situation continue as it is. And this goes for rest of the parameters as well.

So now, where does India stand in all of this? According to the latest sustainability report, India ranks 121 among the total 163 nations in the SDG with an overall score of 60.3. This is marginally better than Pakistan at 125 but worse than Bangladesh at 104.

While the country made progress in climate action and responsible consumption of resources, the progress went down with Sustainable city management. COVID had an impact on India as well!

Current projections show almost eight per cent of children will be malnourished in 2050. And 10 out of 1,000 children will continue to die in 2050 even with the SDG push.

The only way forward is to strategically push SDGs to get back on track. The strategic implementation of SDGs is the bedrock of social inclusion, clean energy, responsible consumption and universal access to public services. In a multipolar world SDGs is our only card to ensure worldwide dialogue and cooperation until 2030 and beyond.

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