Are UN ’s Sustainable Development Goals in the Doldrums Due to the Corona Virus?

A Somali resident sells meat at a market in Hudur, where food shortages continue to cause suffering. Meanwhile, between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 – some 161 million more than for 2019 – the UN Secretary-General said July 12; “new, tragic data”, which indicates the world is “tremendously off track” to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Credit: UN Photo/Tobin JonesBy Jan Servaes and Muhammad Jameel Yusha'uBRUSSELS, Belgium / JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Jul 30 2021 (IPS) A short answer to this question is yes, but it is obvious and predictable failure was visible for some time. This debate started before 2015, the year in which the Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) were adopted as successors to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed in 2000. The 8 MDGs were expanded to 17 massive goals and 169 targets. Using projections from international organizations such as the World Bank, the OECD and the WHO, the British Overseas Development Institute (ODI) already quantified in 2015 how much the world would need to accelerate current trends to achieve the SDGs by 2030. The targets were given a ‘grade’, based on the expected progress. An ‘A’ rating meant that current progress is sufficient to meet the target, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ numbers need to go up a notch. An “F” number indicates that the world is going in the wrong directio...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Development & Aid Editors' Choice Featured Global Headlines Health Human Rights Inequity IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse Population Poverty & SDGs TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news