SDGs: Concept, Current Stage and Impact of Covid-19

The concept of sustainable development is associated with meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, as adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1987. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 ambitious objectives with 169 targets for a greener, peaceful, and healthy world. Adopted on 25 September 2015 by 193 countries to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all, the origin of these goals is traceable to the Rio+20 summit that took place in Brazil, where the world’s government leaders started thinking about having a unified agenda to tackle more significant societal problems.

SDGs are successors of 8 MDGs (Millenium Development Goals), which were earlier targeted and expired in 2015. The present SDGs are set to achieve by 2030, thus referred to collectively as ‘Agenda 2030’. These goals apply to all poor and rich nations, all cities and villages, all genders, and all age people, hence meeting the objective of ‘leave no one behind’. Goals cater to 17 broader areas, from poverty to education, hunger, health, and employment. These goals are a call upon not only governments and public organizations but are asking for active participation from private businesses, universities, and councils, thus making them responsible for all contributing to creating a better future.

Since SDGs are equally applicable to business communities, United Nations has specifically called upon the importance of businesses in achieving these goals. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “I ask all the CEOs to help us. Your advocacy and example can drive action to achieve a life of dignity for all people”. Business participation is also meaningful because businesses are a significant part of society, making corporate sustainability crucial to a more sustainable future, and public-private partnerships can deliver significant change. Cost estimates say that around US$ 2.5 trillion will be spent annually towards realizing the set SDG targets by 2030.

WHERE DO THE SDGs STAND IN 2022?

The Covid-19 pandemic had a severe impact on all SDGs, many of which were already struggling to meet their 2030 agenda. Combined with the Ukraine War, the past two years have reversed much progress made toward Sustainable Development. Following is the current state of the SDGs, as per the report of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs:

SDG 1: End Poverty in all its forms everywhere

Covid-19, followed by rising inflation and the Ukraine War, together have reversed 25 years of progress in poverty reduction. The pandemic brought a sharp rise in global poverty levels, from 8.3% in 2019 to 9.2% in 2020, the first increase in the poverty rate since 1998, leading to 75-95 million more people living in extreme poverty compared to pre-pandemic levels.

SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Since 2014, the number of people suffering from hunger and food insecurity had already been gradually increasing. The pandemic worsened the issue, with an addition of almost 320 million people to the total of a concerning figure of 2.4 billion people lacking access to regular food. The Ukraine war has added to the problem with the broken supply chains leading to the biggest food crisis since World War II.

SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

This goal has been the worst hit over the past two years, with the pandemic infecting more than 600 million people and claiming more than 6.5 million lives worldwide. The result is a disrupted global health system and an increased gap in access to basic health services. The pandemic has also severely impacted mental health worldwide, with a 25% increase in depression and anxiety in 2020.

SDG 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Due to Covid-19, for the past two years, around 147 million children could not attend more than half of their class instructions. Still in the world, 1/4th of primary schools are lacking basic facilities like drinking water, sanitation and electricity. Given the current situation, it is highly likely that this goal will not be met in the given timeline, leaving about 200 million children still out of school by 2030.

SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

As extensive and severe as the state of gender equality in the world, the progress made to date presents no good picture. Still, women and girls face hardships like difficulties in getting jobs, livelihood, education, domestic violence, girl-child abuse, child marriage, and female feticide like grave challenges. As per 2022 statistics by the UN, we are still nowhere close to achieving gender-based equality concerning national political leadership positions in the next 40 years, and women accounted for only 39% of total employment in 2019.

SDG 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

In the 5 years since 2015, access to drinking water has improved from 70% to 74%. Similar statistics are for sanitation where access has jumped from 47% to 54%. Nevertheless, if the 2030 SDGs agendas are to be met, progress speed needs to be four times the current pace.

SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Covid-19 has impacted the impressive progress that the world was making toward access to electricity. Though usage of renewable energy sources has increased by 25% between 2010 and 2019, there are still 2.4 billion people who use inefficient means of energy for cooking.         

SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

The impact of Covid 19 on unemployment has been such that it will still take a year more to return to the pre-covid level of employment, leaving aside any progress on that. Data about child labour is discouraging as 1 in every 10 children is still engaged in child labour worldwide. The rising inflation rate, supply chain disruptions, and the Ukraine war coupled with the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic have slowed economic progress.

SDG 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation

The world crisis has negatively impacted 1 in 3 manufacturing jobs. Though the global manufacturing industry has bounced back from the pandemic effects, the impact has been huge on small-scale and lower-technologies-based industries.

SDG 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

The pandemic’s impact on global inequality has reversed the progress of almost two decades. Unsafe and discriminatory living conditions have led more and more people towards migrating by any means, regardless of the danger. The International Organization for Migration Missing Migrants Project reported 5895 deaths in migratory routes in 2021 alone. The proportion of the population living with half the average income of a country has been growing, a concerning indicator of increasing inequalities.

SDG 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

The pandemic brought many insufficiencies in the public health system, housing, sanitation, and water infrastructure. The past few years have also seen an increase in the population of slum dwellers, with the number as high as 1 billion in 2020. There is a lack of public transport and well-managed public spaces. 

SDG 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

The root cause of many problems that humanity is facing today is unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. Our dependence on natural resources for meeting our basic needs is still rising in 2022. Improper dumping of electronic waste is still prevalent. In the age of enormous poverty, where a large population is still sleeping with a hungry stomach, around 14% of food production is lost during harvesting, transportation, storage, and processing. Due to the pandemic, these effects have magnified further.

SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Rising temperatures, sea levels, and draught-infected geographies are taking us to climate catastrophe. Adding to that is the pandemic which has undone any progress that was made in past years towards combating climate degradation.

SDG 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

Irresponsibly using plastic leading to marine pollution, over-fishing, endangering underwater marine life, increased release of harmful gases into the air, rising ocean temperature levels, and melting glaciers are the realities of the 21st century. Times are high to change the grossly neglected attitude towards ocean, seas and marine resources.

SDG 15: Promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, land degradation and biodiversity loss

We live in a time where every year 10 million hectares of forest are intentionally destroyed, biodiversity has received no place in covid-19 recovery agenda, and we are about to witness the extinction of 40,000 species in the coming decades. There is a need to change the behaviour of not putting ecosystem discussion on the table when deciding priorities for change. 

SDG 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Despite increasing awareness and efforts towards a conflict-free world of mutual coexistence, 1/4th of the world population lives in conflict-affected countries. ⅓ of women still fear walking alone around their neighbourhood at night. Practices like corruption still cripples every 1 in 6 companies, and demands for bribery being coming from public officials. 

SDG 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

During the pandemic, internet usage and uptake have significantly increased. But debt burdens have threatened developing economies like never before, calling for greater need than ever for collaborative efforts toward sustainable development agenda.

What lies ahead?

While the setting up of SDGs in 2015 was a positive and ambitious step in taking tangible action toward Sustainable Development, the past 7 years have witnessed that the follow-up action to these goals has been less than positive. Even before the pandemic, the change was slow and lax, with very little contribution from the private sector which had been considered crucial in the achievement of these goals.

The severe impact of the pandemic has made it increasingly difficult to aim for the achievement of some of these goals, while practically impossible in others. Moving forward, we must learn from our mistakes. As most countries by now have become aware of the importance of sustainability, the focus should be shifted from information dissemination to action-oriented policy making. In order to even come back to the pre-pandemic growth trajectory, all countries and private corporations will have to rise up to the occasion, increasing their contribution to the cause both financially-especially developed countries and large corporation-but also by using SDGs as a basis in all their policy formation.

As the world recovers from a catastrophe like Covid-19, the future holds the risks of much greater dangers such as climate change, food crisis and income inequalities, unless all of us come together to fight against these dangers, and work to build a better and brighter world, for the future generations to live in.