Category Archives: Sustainable development goals

Western leaders defend slow progress to end global inequality as UN summit starts

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Leaders insisted war in Ukraine had not distracted them from sustainable development goals

Western leaders have gone on a charm offensive on the opening day of the UN general assembly as they were forced to defend their record in meeting the organisation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), and insist that the war in Ukraine had not distracted them from this commitment to end global inequality.

At a special summit in New York amounting to a halfway stocktake on progress towards meeting the goals by the target date of 2030, all sides acknowledged there was little chance that the ambitious set of commitments set in 2015, including ending extreme poverty and safeguarding the environment, will be met on schedule.

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We can afford to reverse poverty and climate breakdown. What we can’t afford is the alternative | Kevin Watkins

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Our global finance system is failing to rise to the challenges we face. It’s time it was reimagined – and grounded in our shared humanity

“The peoples of the Earth,” Henry Morgenthau said, “are inseparably linked by a deep underlying community of purpose.”

In July 1944, Morgenthau, the US Treasury secretary, was closing the Bretton Woods conference with a reflection on extreme nationalism and the failures of cooperation that had led to war. Cautioning against the pursuit of national interest through “the plan-less, senseless rivalry that divided us”, he outlined an accord for new institutions grounded in an appeal to shared humanity.

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More than 100 countries face spending cuts as Covid worsens debt crisis, report warns

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As pandemic widens inequalities, many developing countries spend more on debt than health, study says

More than 100 countries face cuts to public spending on health, education and social protection as the Covid-19 pandemic compounds already high levels of debt, a new report says.

The International Monetary Fund believes that 35 to 40 countries are “debt distressed” – defined as when a country is experiencing difficulties in servicing its debt, such as when there are arrears or debt restructuring.

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New Zealand rated best place to survive global societal collapse

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Study citing ‘perilous state’ of industrial civilisation ranks temperate islands top for resilience

New Zealand, Iceland, the UK, Tasmania and Ireland are the places best suited to survive a global collapse of society, according to a study.

The researchers said human civilisation was “in a perilous state” due to the highly interconnected and energy-intensive society that had developed and the environmental damage this had caused.

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The world faces a pandemic of human rights abuses in the wake of Covid-19 | António Guterres

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The virus has been used as a pretext in many countries to crush dissent, criminalise freedoms and silence reporting

  • António Guterres is secretary general of the United Nations

From the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic almost one year ago, it was clear that our world faced far more than a public health emergency. The biggest international crisis in generations quickly morphed into an economic and social crisis. One year on, another stark fact is tragically evident: our world is facing a pandemic of human rights abuses.

Covid-19 has deepened preexisting divides, vulnerabilities and inequalities, and opened up new fractures, including faultlines in human rights. The pandemic has revealed the interconnectedness of our human family – and of the full spectrum of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social. When any one of these rights is under attack, others are at risk.

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Decades of progress on extreme poverty now in reverse due to Covid

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Analysis: The pandemic, combined with the climate crisis and crippling debt burdens, has led to an ‘unprecedented increase’ in poverty, experts warn

Two decades of progress in the reduction of extreme poverty, the elimination of which is one of the sustainable development goals, have been pushed into a sharp reverse by a combination of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the growing climate emergency and increasing debt.

With the World Bank warning of a “truly unprecedented increase” in levels of poverty this year, and renewing calls for debt forgiveness, experts are warning of a growing crisis in multiple areas from education to employment, likely to be felt for years to come.

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Ending world hunger by 2030 would cost $330bn, study finds

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Research suggests that by targeting enhanced aid money more effectively and with greater innovation, a solution is possible

Ending hunger by 2030 would come with a price tag of $330bn (£253bn), according to a study backed by the German government.

Research groups compiled data from 23 countries and found international donors would need to add another $14bn a year to their spending on food security and nutrition over the next 10 years; more than twice their current contribution. Low and middle-income countries would also have to give another $19bn a year, potentially through taxation.

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Looking for a Saturday night film? Instead of Notting Hill try Nations United | Richard Curtis

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In 2015, 193 countries agreed a blueprint for a better planet. 2020 was supposed to be a Super Year of progress – we can’t let the pandemic knock us off course

I’m aware this is a strange article to be writing. As most people struggle with the day-to-day complexity of life under the pandemic, how we do find the headspace to think about something as global as the sustainable development goals? But I’m inspired by a recent article by the activist and author Arundhati Roy. “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next,” she wrote.

And for me, the roadmap on this journey comes from the global goals – the superdetailed blueprint, agreed by 193 countries in 2015, for transformation for people and planet by 2030.

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‘Covid has magnified every existing inequality’ – Melinda Gates

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Pandemic could result in a ‘lost decade’ for developing countries says co-chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in stark report


The world’s poorest countries risk a lost decade of development unless leaders move quickly to help them recover from the fallout of Covid-19, Melinda Gates told the Guardian.

The co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has committed $350m (£270m) to support the global response to the pandemic, said it was in the hands of the global community to decide the long-term impact.

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Covid-19 has revealed a pre-existing pandemic of poverty that benefits the rich

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The World Bank’s flawed and misunderstood poverty benchmark has led to a deceptively positive picture and dangerous complacency

  • Philip Alston is the outgoing UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

Poverty is suddenly all over the front page. As coronavirus ravages the globe, its wholly disproportionate impact on poor people and marginalised communities is inescapable. Hundreds of millions of people are being pushed into poverty and unemployment, with woeful support in most places, alongside a huge expansion in hunger, homelessness, and dangerous work.

How could the poverty narrative have turned on a dime? Until just a few months ago, many were celebrating the imminent end of poverty; now it’s everywhere. The explanation is simple. Over the past decade, world leaders, philanthropists and pundits have embraced a deceptively optimistic narrative about the world’s progress against poverty. It has been lauded as one of the “greatest human achievements”, a feat seen “never before in human history” and an “unprecedented” accomplishment. But the success story was always highly misleading.

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‘We squandered a decade’: world losing fight against poverty, says UN academic

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Goal to eradicate poverty by 2030 ‘completely off track’, says outgoing special rapporteur, with Covid-19 likely to impoverish millions more

International institutions are losing the fight against global poverty despite “self congratulatory” messages to the contrary, according to the UN’s outgoing special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

In his final report in the post, the Australian academic Philip Alston warns that states and global organisations are “completely off track” to meet the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030, with more people instead likely to become highly impoverished by new shocks, including coronavirus and existing challenges like the climate crisis.

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Coronavirus could turn back the clock 30 years on global poverty

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Economic impact of global shutdown could push half a billion people into privation, researchers warn

Half a billion people could be pushed into poverty as economies around the world shrink because of the coronavirus outbreak, a new study has warned.

Poverty levels in developing countries could be set back by up to 30 years, research released by the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research warned on Thursday.

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‘A big wake-up call’: survey shows work still to be done on women’s sexual rights

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Efforts to achieve gender equality by 2030 are being hampered by lack of progress on reproductive health issues, says UN body

Almost half of women and girls living in more than 50 countries around the world are not able to make their own decisions about their reproductive rights, with up to a quarter saying they are unable to say no to sex, a new survey has found.

The findings, published by the UN population fund (UNFPA) on Wednesday, have been described as a “big wake-up call” in global efforts to achieve gender equality by 2030.

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Zimbabwe’s president appeals for help to end country’s ‘financial isolation’

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Emmerson Mnangagwa makes passionate plea for support as he targets upper middle-income status by 2030

The president of Zimbabwe has appealed for help in pulling his debt-ridden country out of “financial isolation”.

Emmerson Mnangagwa made his passionate call for international funding after he failed to secure new loans from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, African Development Bank and the Paris Club due to outstanding foreign debts of $8bn (£6.2bn).

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The world is failing to ensure children have a ‘liveable planet’, report finds

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Children in biggest carbon-emitting nations are healthiest, while those with tiny environmental footprints suffer twofold from poor health and living at the sharp end of the climate crisis

Every country in the world is failing to shield children’s health and their futures from intensifying ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices, says a new report.

The report says that despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over the past 20 years, “today’s children face an uncertain future”, with every child facing “existential threats”.

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Cumberbatch, Colman among stars urging action on climate and poverty

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Inequality also targeted as 2,000 high-profile figures champion sustainable development goals in open letter

Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch and Malala Yousafzai are among 2,000 leading activists, campaigners and public figures who have backed an open letter demanding urgent action to end extreme poverty, conquer inequality and fix the climate crisis.

Directed at the world leaders who in 2015 agreed a series of UN global goals – including tackling gender inequality, ending global warming and eradicating hunger by 2030 – the letter declares a state of emergency for people and planet.

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Nigeria’s child development crisis is a tragedy. Here’s how we can end it

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Investment in health and education and an end to early marriage could transform Africa’s most populous country

If you want a window on the condition of children in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, there is no better vantage point than the Katanga health centre in the impoverished northern state of Jigawa.

In a hut that passes for a nutrition clinic, a group of 25 women wait with their children. Tiny bodies bearing the hallmarks of acute malnutrition – distended stomachs and twig-thin limbs – are lifted into a weighing harness and their arms measured to check for signs of wasting. Ali, who has just reached his first birthday, weighs only 5kg – the average age of a two-month-old in the UK. His mother is 14.

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‘Where I live even 100 people cannot raise the money for one funeral’

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A farmer in eastern Uganda says he clings to the hope that the UN sustainable development goals could change things

Where I live, people are organised in clans. I belong to a clan where even 100 people, gathered together, can’t raise $100 (£75) to organise a funeral.

I come from a family that couldn’t afford to pay tuition of $10 a term when I was a student two decades ago. Many of my young relatives are out of school now, because their parents can’t afford a full academic term of $15.

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Italy to put sustainability and climate at heart of learning in schools

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Country will become first to make study of global heating and human influence on natural resources compulsory in state schools

Italy is to become the first country in the world to make sustainability and climate crisis compulsory subjects for schoolchildren.

State schools will begin incorporating the UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development into as many subjects as possible from September, with one hour a week dedicated to themes including global heating and humans’ influence on the planet.

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