15 years ago, the member countries of the United Nations agreed to reduce poverty, setting 17 objectives to be achieved before 2030. However, halfway, instead of approaching the goal, the world stagnates or recedes. So much so that the UN Secretary General is calling on heads of state around the world to save the Sustainable Development Goals at the General Assembly next September.
In 2015, the “Agenda 2030” adopted by UN Member States listed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), broken down into 169 targets, intended to build a better and more sustainable future for all at the end of this decade. “Unless we act now, the 2030 Agenda could become the epitaph of the world that might have been “Warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in the preamble to this mid-term review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.
One in three humans is food insecure or starving. One in eight humans live in slum conditions, our correspondent in New York recalls, Carrie Nooten. The delay of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in terms of poverty is more than alarming. For the head of the UN, Antonio Guterresthe SDGs “ vanish in the rearview mirror, along with the hope and rights of current and future generations “. Of the approximately 140 “targets” that could be assessed, more than 30% have registered no progress, or even a regression since 2015, and around half show a moderate or serious deviation from the hoped-for trajectory.
The other area in which the desired progress is slipping back: gender equality. According to the report published Monday, July 10 by the UN, it would take 300 years to end child marriage in the world and 286 years to eliminate all discriminatory laws against women.
Pandemic and the global financial system
The pandemic has caused this stagnation or setbacks. For example, it halted the downward trend in extreme poverty (less than $2.15 a day), it also had a devastating effect on education.
But for the United Nations, we must also look at the brakes caused by the international financial system, which weighs down developing countries and stops their progress. ” Buried under a mountain of debt “, they “ are most affected by our collective failure to invest in the Sustainable Development Goals “, underlines Antonio Guterres. ” We cannot persist with an unscrupulous financial system and expect developing countries to achieve goals that developed countries have achieved with far fewer constraints. “, adds the report.
The UN wants to throw a final lifeline to these SDGs” in danger and hopes that the leaders will be able to make concrete commitments next September.