With only ten years to go to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are off track – a situation that has been compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has triggered the worst economic recession since 1930 and the combined social, economic, and health impacts of Covid-19 have outpaced any other major crisis in recent history. As an ongoing global crisis, COVID-19 will undoubtedly set back years of progress made against the Goals and disrupt development progress and funding activities for the decade to come. An additional 207 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030 due to the severe long-term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the total number to more than a billion. Extreme poverty, hunger, unemployment, inequality, and violence are rising; education has been disrupted; men, women, and children are confined to their homes in many parts of the world, while new phases of the pandemic are unfolding. The poorest and most vulnerable people and countries have inevitably been hit the hardest.