The Spending Challenge Of Achieving The Sdgs In South Asia Lessons From India

South Asia has experienced significant progress in improving human and physical capital over the past few decades. Within the region, India has become a global economic powerhouse with enormous development potential ahead. To foster human and economic development, India has shown a strong commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Agenda. This paper focuses on the medium-term development challenges that South Asia, and in particular India, faces to ensure substantial progress along the SDGs by 2030. We estimate the additional spending needed in critical areas of human capital (health and education) and physical capital (water and sanitation, electricity, and roads). We document progress on these five sectors for India relative to other South Asian countries and discuss implications for policy and reform.

South Asia has experienced significant progress in improving human and physical capital over the past few decades. Within the region, India has become a global economic powerhouse with enormous development potential ahead. To foster human and economic development, India has shown a strong commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda. This chapter focuses on the medium-term development challenges that South Asia, and in particular India, faces to ensure substantial progress along the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. We estimate the additional spending needed in critical areas of human capital (health and education) and physical capital (water and sanitation, electricity, and roads). We document progress on these five sectors for India relative to other South Asian countries and discuss implications for policy and reform.

South Asia’s Path to Sustainable and Inclusive Growth highlights the remarkable development progress in South Asia and how the region can advance in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Steps include a renewed push toward greater trade and financial openness, while responding proactively to the distributional impact and dislocation associated with this structural transformation. Promoting a green and digital recovery remains important. The book explores ways to accelerate the income convergence process in the region, leveraging on the still-large potential demographic dividend in most of the countries. These include greater economic diversification and export sophistication, trade and foreign direct investment liberalization and participation in global value chains amid shifting regional and global conditions, financial development, and investment in human capital.

This paper assesses the additional spending required to make substantial progress towards achieving the SDGs in Pakistan. We focus on critical areas of human (education and health) and physical (electricity, roads, and water and sanitation) capital. For each sector, we document the progress to date, assess where Pakistan stands relative to its peers, highlight key challenges, and estimate the additional spending required to make substantial progress. The estimates for the additional spending are derived using the IMF SDG costing methodology. We find that to achieve the SDGs in these sectors would require additional annual spending of about 16 percent of GDP in 2030 from the public and private sectors combined.

Global progress on the Sustainable Development Goals will depend to a large extent on the collective action of South Asia to implement them. The sub-region indeed accounts for almost one fourth of the world's population, 36 per cent of the world's poor and nearly half of the world's malnourished children. The sub-region's success in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, however, hinges on addressing current capacity gaps and strengthening the means of implementation. Recognizing the host of challenges faced by the sub-region, UNESCAP has attempted in the present Report, to unpack the 2030 Agenda at the sub-regional level, outlining tangible, high priority and relevant policy actions that are critical to achieve sustainable development in South Asia. The Report identifies seven key priorities that can help accelerate the SDG achievement in South Asia by leveraging the relationships between the Goals. Based on rigorous policy simulations and evidence, it offers insight into ways a regionally coordinated sustainable industrialization strategy could generate more than 56 million new jobs by 2030 in South Asia, and lift 71 million additional people out of poverty, relative to a business-as-usual scenario. It is hoped that this Report will be useful for analysts and practitioners of development policy in the sub-region and beyond, in stimulating a debate on the ways and means of bringing sustainable prosperity to all in the dynamic and population subregion of South Asia.

India is on track to be one of the fastest growing major economies in the world this year, underpinned by prudent macroeconomic policies. Nonetheless, the economy is facing global headwinds, including a global growth slowdown in an increasingly fragmented world.

This book assesses the roadmap for the implementation of the SDGs in South Asia, focusing in particular on the areas of poverty reduction, inequality, health/well-being and water and sanitation. South Asia is amongst the fastest growing regions in the world, with an aggregate GDP in excess of two trillion US dollars, but at the same time it has significant deficits in human development, with 37 per cent of the world's poor and nearly half of the world's malnourished children. For South Asia, the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a constructive opportunity to end many of the region's deprivations in a time-bound and systematic manner. Starting with the legacy of the Millennium Development Goals, the book goes on to provide a country-by-country overview of strategies for addressing the problems of poverty, health, water and sanitation. South-South Cooperation and in particular the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are discussed and, finally, the editors present a summary of policy priorities for social development. This book aims to be a useful resource for researchers, policy influencers, planners, implementers, students, and activists aiming to push to achieve the SDGs.

After the strong rebound of 6.5 percent posted in 2021, growth in Asia and Pacific is expected to moderate to 4.0 percent in 2022 amid an uncertain global environment and rise to 4.3 percent in 2023. Inflation has risen above most central bank targets, but is expected to peak in late 2022. As the effects of the pandemic wane, the region faces new headwinds from global financial tightening and an expected slowdown of external demand. While Asia remains a relative bright spot in an increasingly lethargic global economy, it is expected to expand at a rate that is well below the average rate of 51⁄2 percent seen over the preceding two decades. Policy support is gradually being withdrawn as inflation rises and idle capacity is utilized, but monetary policy should be ready to tighten faster if the rise in core inflation turns out to be more persistent. The region’s rising public debt lev¬els call for continued fiscal consolidation, so interven¬tions to mitigate global food and energy shocks should be well targeted, temporary, and budget neutral. Structural reforms are needed to boost growth and mitigate the scarring that is expected from the pan¬demic, especially making up for lost schooling through investments in education and training, promoting diversification, addressing the debt overhang from the pandemic, and harnessing digitalization. Strong multilateralism—including through international organizations, the Group of Twenty and regional processes—will be needed to mitigate geo-economic fragmentation and deliver much needed progress on climate change commitments.