SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
COVID-19 Stalls Progress on Global Goals SDG Goals
The world only has 10 years left to achieve the goals of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to which more than 150 world leaders committed in 2015.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) SDG Pulse – UNCTAD’s annual statistical publication reporting on developments relating to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – shows that progress on critical targets of the sustainable development goals has stalled amid the coronavirus crisis.
“Despite COVID-19, despite containment, despite everyone working from home, it was very important for us to publish the SDG Pulse on time,” said UNCTAD’s Head of Statistics and Information, Steve MacFeely.
The purpose of the report, published on 8th July 2020, is to:
“The development challenges facing the world didn’t stop or go away, so it’s important that we continue to report progress towards the 2030 Agenda, and the important role that UNCTAD plays in that journey,” Mr MacFeely said.
• provide an update on the evolution of a selection of official SDG indicators and complementary data and statistics; • provide progress reports on the development of new concepts and methodologies for UNCTAD custodian indicators; and
Far-reaching impact of pandemic This year’s bulletin is no ordinary update, as the effects of COVID-19 are evident throughout the report.
• showcase, beyond the perspective of the formal SDG indicators, how UNCTAD is contributing to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
The impact is evident in the trade of international goods, for which UNCTAD now forecasts a decline of almost 27 per cent for the second quarter of 2020, compared with the same quarter last year. The organisation also forecasts a fall of 20 per cent in merchandise trade for the whole year.
Every year, the SDG Pulse highlights a specific aspect of the 2030 Agenda and discusses this issue from the slant or perspective of statistics. The 2020 edition discusses the economic, social and environmental impacts of COVID-19 and its implications for the continuation of statistical production.
For instance, SDG target 17.11 aims to significantly increase the exports of developing countries, and in particular to double the share of least developed countries (LDCs) in global exports by 2020.
As UNCTAD warned, when it launched the 2020 edition of its SDG Pulse, the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing critical economic, social and environmental development targets out of reach.
Although LDCs had been achieving modest growth in market share, COVID-19 has likely pushed the target beyond reach.
UNCTAD’s online annual update, tracking progress on a range of indicators of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, shows that poverty, inequality, the climate crisis, unsustainable production and other pressing challenges require even more urgent action due to COVID-19.
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Another shocking result featured in this year’s update is that the coronavirus-induced recordbreaking fall of 5 per cent in carbon dioxide emissions – compared with the same period in 2019 – will not be enough to achieve even the weakest of the targets set out by the Paris Agreement on climate change. 22
