The global impacts of the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic have compounded the urgency and complicated efforts toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. Amid broader geopolitical tensions, a burgeoning climate crisis, and rising poverty, world leaders have gathered at the United Nations in New York for a High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in an effort to chart the best way forward to bring the implementation of the 17 SDGs back on track.
The UN’s Deputy Secretary-General called the multiple crises the world currently faces a wake-up call to build back better. The latest Sustainable Development Goals Report expected to be released later this week will demonstrate the devastating developmental impacts of multiple yet interlinked global crises – from the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change and conflicts around the world.
“We know the pandemic is not yet over and it had a detrimental impact on societies and people. It has slowed down the implementation of the 2030 agenda and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals reversed progress on many SDGs. But at the same time, the pandemic has served as a wake-up call in exposing many aspects of our societies which were not right. This gives us the opportunity to indeed build back better and rectify our ways of living, as well as fix the resilience of our socio-economic and health systems as the theme of this forum, helpful invites us to do. Second, we already have the blueprint to anchor our recovery, which we all agreed on in 2015. That is the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals,” says President of the Economic and Social Council, Ambassador Collen Vixen Kelapile.
Reviewing SDGs
This year’s forum will review a number of the 17 SDGs including Goal 4 on quality education, Goal 5 on gender equality, and Goal 14 on life below water, among others. While 44 countries, both developed and developing, will present their Voluntary National Reviews or VNRs on national implementation of the SDGs.
There are growing concerns amid global backsliding as between 75 and 90 million people are estimated to fall back into extreme poverty compared to pre-pandemic levels with the highest number of conflicts since 1945.
“The VNRs also highlight the pressing challenges of food insecurity and climate change. Some countries have reported an increase in droughts and floods, a reduction in biodiversity, erratic rainfalls, and local swarms that have decimated crop yields and affected the livelihoods of rural communities. Across all countries, women, young people, and children were the most vulnerable. Some countries reported a rise in early marriage and dramatic increases in gender-based violence, many women, especially mothers, left the labour market during the pandemic as the care burden escalated. Many young people across the world now face even greater challenges in accessing education, training, and jobs,” says UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed
Sustainable Development Goals Summit
The forum will culminate in the adoption of a ministerial declaration and kick-off preparation for the Sustainable Development Goals Summit to be held in 2023.
“We have made progress, but I think it’s fair to say that this is not the halfway there the world had imagined in 2015. The multiple crises we are experiencing are a wake-up call. I believe we can turn them into an opportunity for the much-needed absence of solidarity. The key lies in the required transitions in renewable energy, food systems, and digital connectivity, and an investment in human capital financing the opportunities. These transactions must be purposefully designed to increase economic growth, employment, and equality all open in order to keep our 2030 agenda promise of leave no one behind.”
With the SDG deadline of 2030 looming ominously, a high-level forum is envisaged as a vehicle to increase momentum amid a confluence of factors seeking to undermine that very progress.
