RACING AGAINST TIME

JUST 12 PER CENT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs) ARE ON TRACK AT THE HALFWAY MARK TO THE 2030 DEADLINE. THE ACTION PLAN RELEASED DURING INDIA'S G20 PRESIDENCY AIMS TO HASTEN THE PROGRESS

- NIDHI SINGAL

$2.5 TRILLION ANNUAL SDG FUNDING GAP FOR DEVELOPING NATIONS BEFORE COVID-19

$4.2 TRILLION THE FUNDING GAP AFTER COVID-19 FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

EIGHT YEARS AGO, the United Nations set the clock ticking on what then Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called a “people’s agenda”. One-hundred-and-ninety-three countries agreed to meet a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets by 2030.

And significant progress was made in some critical areas until 2019: extreme poverty declined considerably, under-five mortality fell by 49 per cent between 2000 and 2017, and most of the world’s population had access to electricity. But all of that came to a screeching halt in 2020 after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the situation got worse after Russia invaded Ukraine. So much so that the number of people living in extreme poverty today is higher than it was four years ago, hunger has increased to levels seen in 2005, gender equality is some 300 years away, and just 26 people own as much wealth as half of the world’s population, per the UN.

So, when the development ministers of the G20 nations met in Varanasi in June under India’s G20 presidency—almost exactly at the halfway mark to the 2030 deadline—they were painfully aware of that ticking clock. The stakes were high, and something had to be done to push the world back on track to meet those 17 goals. The result was the seven-year action plan drawn up by the G20 Development Working Group, referred to as India’s seven-year action plan—this is an extension to the 2016 Hangzhou Action Plan—that was presented during the G20 Development Ministers’ Meeting in Varanasi on June 12.