A Post Pandemic Assessment Of The Sustainable Development Goals

The COVID-19 pandemic hit countries’ development agendas hard. The ensuing recession has pushed millions into extreme poverty and has shrunk government resources available for spending on achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This Staff Discussion Note assesses the current state of play on funding SDGs in five key development areas: education, health, roads, electricity, and water and sanitation, using a newly developed dynamic macroeconomic framework.

This book highlights the impact of COVID-19 on environmental sustainability and SDG’s, using various case studies. The year 2020 was a historical year mainly due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19 and it influenced or affected the global economy, business models and the industrial sectors, thus impacting sustainability in various ways. Given that sustainability has many faces and facets, it is worthwhile to deal with the relation (or impact) of COVID-19 on various elements of sustainability. This book presents how COVID-19 has influenced Environmental Sustainability along with the SDG’s.

This paper uses a novel macroeconomic framework to identify policy and financing options to help Rwanda achieve its sustainable development goals (SDGs). Under current policies, Rwanda would meet its SDGs right after 2050. Active policies that combine fiscal reforms and higher private sector participation could fulfill more than one third of Rwanda’s post-pandemic SDG financing gap, enabling the country to meet its SDG targets by 2040. For Rwanda to meet its SDGs by 2030, active policies would need to be complemented with about 133⁄4 percentage points of GDP in additional resources annually until then.

This whitepaper/ebook aims at discussing the need to rebuild our social paradigms through SDGs after the COVID-19 pandemic. The idea is to recognize the new possibilities of development focused on human factors, presenting the case of the SEP that is based on a people-centered approach aspiring at empowering people and communities and balance economic progress, environmental protection but also human needs.

This volume advances the state-of-the-art in the study of the interplay among financial crises, poverty dynamics and environmental sustainability. It offers timely and unique contributions to the immediate global challenge of sustainable development. Developing a new evidence-base, the volume offers concrete recommendations for policy action needed in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in relation to environment and poverty during the current conditions of financial distress. The approach taken is inductive and evidence-driven. Most analysis is based on in-depth case studies that aim to offer a detailed and dynamic picture on how poverty and environmental sustainability interact in specific social contexts and financial crises. In this way the volume aims to generate a wealth of new and concrete evidence that offer a solid foundation to understand the multiple channels through which social and environmental factors interact, and the ways in which this interaction can and should be managed in order to achieve the needed global transition to sustainability. Broader dynamics that are covered and analysed include the historical legacies of structural adjustment and colonialism; the current debt wave experienced in developing countries; the role of inequality; the significant impact that climate change has on livelihoods and on meeting the SDGs; the new challenge presented by the Covid-19 pandemic for the SDGs; the challenge of sustainable funding for SDGs; and the need for a new eco-social contract. Case-studies examined include Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Zambia, and subregions such as the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and Lower Mekong Countries. The volume is part of a joint initiative by the ‘Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP)’ of the University of Sussex, the ‘UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Action for Sustainable Development Goals’ and the ‘United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)’. The overall aim is to advance a new research programme and foster a better understanding of the multiple, complex and often opposing ways through which the punctuated economic slowdown of financial crises, poverty dynamics and environmental sustainability interact. It also makes novel recommendations into how poverty reduction and environment can work in synergy rather than being antagonistic, especially during financial distress, leading into recommendations directly geared towards achieving the SDGs and beyond.

COVID-19 and the Sustainable Development Goals: Societal Influence explores how the coronavirus pandemic impacts the implementation of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), paying particular attention to socioeconomic and disaster risk management dimensions. Sections provide a foundational understanding of the virus and its risk factors, cover relevant mitigation measures for minimizing the spread of COVID-19, explore the virus's originations and transmission mechanisms, and look at gold standard procedures for COVID-19 testing and antibody-based diagnosis. Final sections present the latest insights on the global effects of COVID-19 and examine potential future challenges, opportunities and strategic responses. Synthesizes interdisciplinary research into one comprehensive resource for easier research and teaching Presents state-of-the-art insights on the global effects of this ongoing pandemic across a wide range of sectors Includes case studies, challenges, opportunities and future perspectives

Geography is a discipline with a profound interdisciplinary character focusing on studying the complex interactions between nature and society. Geography can advance the level of knowledge and awareness and provide important contributions to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. This book explores some of these issues, while also disseminating and supporting the efforts of geographers worldwide to promote the implementation of the SDGs. It offers local and global perspectives to a variety of topics covered by the SDGs, such as: How do different actors such as universities, companies and education actors respond to Sustainable Development Goals, especially during the complex context of the COVID pandemic? What is the role of novel spatial technologies and open/big data in achieving SDGs and how can Geography assist? How are new eco-social challenges positioned in a post-pandemic global change? What are novel educational contexts and resources that can be used to transform society toward sustainability of socioecological systems? What conceptual frameworks and strategies can contribute to the construction of societies based on human welfare and the care of nature? This book is focused on innovative sustainability-oriented geographical research on the above (and more) topics that explore the diverse social, environmental, economic and cultural contexts at various spatial scales. It also includes chapters that report on geographical education initiatives in schools and universities, the implication of geographers in community-based learning and increasing community's awareness in terms of environment, climate change and sustainable development as well as chapters that make use of geospatial technologies (e.g., remote sensing, GIS, etc.) both in geographical research and education for sustainable development are particularly relevant for the book.

This book assesses the progress in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in ASEAN, India and China using the above framework conditions in the context with three main propositions. First, translating the SDGs into regional economic integration strategies during the pandemic recovery can enhance the link between global objectives and the multifaceted reality of an ASEAN community building process, and providing a strategic option to strengthen the regional approaches. Secondly, a regional approach on complementarities to SDGs can facilitate the definition of relevant targets/indicators and enhance the monitoring and evaluation framework. In so doing it could also offer the scope to integrate more closely ASEAN community’s social and environmental concerns into existing economic, social and political frameworks. Thirdly, focusing just on the geo-economic sphere – the area where south east and East Asian economic integration is relatively more advanced – will prove the hypothesis that effective regional integration through mega trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) can support the Asia’s transformation agenda and foster more inclusive and sustainable growth.