Results for Sustainable Development Goals

With people everywhere struggling to preserve their livelihoods under the constant threat of the coronavirus, it has become clear that this pandemic is more than a health emergency. It has become a global whole-of-society crisis. In this context, one of our greatest fears is that after decades of improvement, future generations’ prospects have suddenly plummeted. Some regions are experiencing a reversal of gains achieved in the past 20 years. It will be many months – even years – before vaccines against current and future variants of the virus are accessible to everyone. By Palitha Abeykoon, Maha El Rabbat, David Nabarro

A new United Nations report on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) progress urges countries to redouble efforts. On its current trajectory, Asia and the Pacific will not achieve any of the 17 SDGs by 2030. Many SDG targets related to the environment and natural resources are registering negative trends. Hazardous waste generation, the reduction in forest areas and the permanent water body extent are the three SDG indicators which are predicted to regress the most by 2030, compared to 2015.