[ad_1]
The Sustainability Solutions Network has released its Annual Sustainability Report, which includes the 2021 SDG Index and Scorecards. Annual Resources provide data to track and rank the performance of all member states of the UN on the 17 SDGs. The 2021 report also includes the International Spillover Index.
The world’s first-ever decline in SDG progress is due to rising poverty and unemployment rates linked to COVID-19.
SDSN works to mobilize expertise for problem solving for sustainable development. The report was written by Jeffrey Sachs, president of the SDSN, as well as by Christian Kroll, Guillaume Lafortune, Grayson Fuller and Finn Woelm.
The 2021 report shows the first reversal underway since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015. This reversal is revealed by a decrease in the global average score of countries on the SDG index. The authors explain that the drop is due in large part to the increase in poverty and unemployment rates linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report also links progress on the SDGs to fiscal space, noting that developing countries have limited capacity to access market finance, which inhibits emergency responses and investment-driven stimulus packages. As governments in high-income countries have borrowed heavily in response to the pandemic, [low-income developing countries] have not been able to do so due to their lower creditworthiness in the market. In the short term, rich countries are expected to recover from the pandemic faster than poor countries. The report makes recommendations to increase fiscal space for developing countries.
Sachs explains that the COVID-19 pandemic has created “not only a global health emergency, but also a crisis of sustainable development.” The way to restore progress on the SDGs is to dramatically increase fiscal space in developing countries, using both global tax reform and increased funding from multilateral development banks (MDBs).
Regarding spillover effects, the authors stress that each country’s strategy to achieve the SDGs must avoid generating negative impacts on other countries. According to the index, high-income and OECD countries tend to generate the most negative spillovers. These can occur through unsustainable supply chains, base erosion and profit shifting.
Among the findings by country published on June 14, 2021:
- Finland, Sweden and Denmark are ranked first, second and third, but even they are not on track to achieve all the SDGs by 2030, given the major challenges on several SDGs;
- The most important progress is in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Côte d’Ivoire; the authors add that some of the countries that have made the most progress have also started from lower benchmarks;
- Regionally, the region with the most progress has been East and South Asia; and
- The countries with the largest declines in SDG scores since 2015 are Brazil, Venezuela and Tuvalu.
The Sustainable Development Report is one of many SDG assessments released each year in the run-up to the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) meeting. includes several paragraphs on the status of each SDG, based on available dataglobal indicator datafrom April 2021. The report underlines that for the poorest countries, progress on the SDGs is postponed by a full ten years due to the pandemic (SDG 10, reduction of inequalities), and foreign direct investment is expected to fall by 40% (SDG 17, partnership for the Goals), adding to the reduced capacity of countries to make essential investments in recovery, climate change and the SDGs.[SDSN press release] [Publication: Sustainable Development Report 2021: The Decade of Action for theSustainable Development Goals] [SDG Index website]
[ad_2]
picture credit