When delegations from around the world arrive in New York this week to assess the medium-term status of the 2030 Agenda, it will be much more than just a leaden exercise in statistical verification. In the words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has just published a report on the subject: “The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are disappearing in the rearview mirror and with them the hopes and rights of this and future generations.” ” A work that contains the words “rescue plan” in the title is already preparing us for sad content.
The reality is that the 2030 Agenda is only slowly reaching its midpoint, if not even taking steps backwards. A collection of endogenous and exogenous factors have acted as spokes in the wheel of this process: from the ambitions of the SDGs themselves, which have transformed some goals into aspirations, to the deep inequalities in income, population or location that limit the scope of these goals the actions. Or the overlap between one goal and another that prevents isolated progress.
Furthermore, a series of catastrophic events – major recession, pandemic, conflict, debt crisis – have made the roadmap for international progress extremely difficult.
Gillaume Lafortune, a member of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and lead author of a landmark report on the issue, described the situation as risking a “lost decade of sustainable development.” He is not exaggerating, as the global health sector shows. Fueled by a combination of dollars, leadership and innovation, the indicators that measure the health and well-being of the international community – malnutrition, access to clean water or child mortality, for example – experienced a true revolution in the fourth century that followed The Fall of the Berliners Wall.
There is nothing to suggest that the next seven years of the 2030 Agenda will be easier than the first
Since 2015, however, the trend lines have become worryingly flattened. As a new analysis from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) shows, none of the 13 goals proposed in SDG3 (Health) show any signs of being achieved. The gap is particularly wide in sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income areas, where the pandemic has displaced important interventions such as routine childhood vaccination.
It’s important to remember what it’s about. In places like the Sahel, Central America or the Eastern Mediterranean, every tenth that is ahead or behind the indicators represents human lives, future opportunities or natural resources on which daily life depends. Given the infantile diatribes from Vox and the Flat Earth gang, the SDGs are one of the international community’s very few tools to address the risks and challenges that plague these communities and which are also ours. Recurrent and increasingly persistent droughts in North Africa, for example, are a major cause of forced relocation to other regions, including Europe.
There is nothing to suggest that the next seven years of the 2030 Agenda will be easier than the first. The world is unlikely to face a crisis of pandemic proportions again, but all other contextual factors can and will worsen. The SDGs are unfolding amid a perfect storm of geopolitical instability and financial tensions that make any concerted solution difficult. That’s why this agenda is worth much more than its content: on issues like global warming or addressing health risks, the crossroads are historical and existential. The SDGs define an understanding of the world that must endure beyond 2030, because the alternative is isolationism, autocracy and short-termism, which are gaining strength on half the planet.
There is no asset or limit that can protect us from the consequences of systemic risks that must be addressed around the world.
In this context, the elusive complicity of voters in rich countries is more important than ever. One of the most dangerous failures of these years has been the inability to develop effective narratives that allow citizens to understand what is at stake. For example, part of Europe’s rural population is convinced that the 2030 Agenda was designed against their interests. The incursion of national-populist parties into the territories is a defeat for those of us who know that scarcity of water resources, extreme temperatures, loss of biodiversity or veterinary self-sufficiency are not in the interest of anyone with half a brain. If this has happened, it is partly because the rest of us have not done our jobs well and because the SDG pin is perceived as a partisan symbol.
Defibrillation of the ODS is an expensive and complex process, but by no means impossible. Minister Guterres’ own report presents a proposal that includes, among other things: strengthening accountable institutions (national and international); a strategic prioritization of goals; and a financial shock plan that guarantees an additional $500,000 million (around 470,000 million euros) annually by increasing donations, strengthening multilateral banks and restructuring debt. If this seems a very large amount, consider the total bill of a crisis like Covid-19: 14 trillion dollars by 2024 (more than 13 trillion euros), according to the International Monetary Fund estimate cited by The Lancet. From this perspective, investments in primary health systems, epidemiological surveillance, access to pharmaceutical products or the strengthening of coordination mechanisms – all fundamental components of a good preparedness and response system, as proposed in the 2030 Agenda – are among the most profitable expenditures that a public sector can undertake administration can imagine.
The fight against the SARS-Cov2 virus is left behind, but its logic remains unchanged: collective security depends on collective rights. There is no asset or limit that can protect us from the consequences of systemic risks that must be addressed around the world. We already know that the SDGs are an imperfect tool; The question is whether one of its alternatives is better.
Gonzalo Fanjul He is director of policy analysis at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.
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