On the 29th of April, António Guterres, the Secretary General of the UN released the 'Progress Towards Sustainable Development Goals' report for the year 2022. This report recommended action to reverse the havoc wrecked by the COVID-19 Pandemic and to "rescue the SDGs." This advanced version of the report was released to help direct discussions at the July 2022 session of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).
This report starts off by talking about how the COVID-19 Pandemic has had 'catastrophic effects' on peoples' livelihoods and global efforts on the SDGs. It then talks about how all the issues our world is facing have made it even harder to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Post this it explains how there is a need for a global economy and all countries to partner up for SDGs to be achieved. Finally, this report then talks about the steps to achieve each goal. At the same time, it also elaborates on the current status of each one of the 17 goals.
The status of some goals is:
Goal 4 (Quality Education): In 2022, 147 million children missed out on important in-class instruction. Despite this data from most low- and middle-income countries for the period of 2013–2021 indicates that about 7 in 10 children 3 and 4 years of age are still developmentally on track.
Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth): Most of the economic downturns experienced by the Pandemic have bounced back. This is evidenced by an estimated Real GDP Per Capita growth rate of 4.4%, 2.5%, and 3% in 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively based on pre-war expectations. Even though the war in Ukraine is expected to set back these assumptions the growth is still substantial.
Goal 13 (Climate Action): The decrease in CO2 emissions seen in 2020, did not continue and instead emissions increased by 6% due to the rebounding of demand for coal and fuel in 2021. These emissions are expected to increase further, hence it is necessary for countries to partner up to prevent a climate catastrophe. In order to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and this SDG it is recommended to cut down emissions by 4% (compared to the 2010 levels) by 2030.
Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions): Unfortunately this year the world witnessed the highest number of people living in conflict-affected countries since 1945. This number is expected to increase further due to the War in Ukraine. The number of parliamentarians under the age of 45 had increased in 2021 to 31.1% but then unfortunately dropped to 30.2% in 2022. Additionally, the nature of Parliaments has also changed with Parliaments becoming more younger and gender diverse. The number of female parliamentarians has increased from 17% in 2018 to 22% in 2022.
Goal 17 (Partnerships for goals): Despite a strong revival in the amount of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and remittance flows, most developing countries have found it hard to recover economically. This highlights the vast differences between developing and developed countries.
According to me, the past year has unfortunately not been the best in terms of progress on the SDGs. Some part of this can be attributed to the pandemic but I believe that we have to work harder in the coming year to achieve the SDGs. I believe that we have to focus a bit more on Goal 17 as it is essential to solving other goals. This is because I believe that without partnership it is very tough to solve any pressing issue that our world is facing.
