(Expansión) – This month marks seven years since the 2030 Agenda was signed. As in any good agenda, goals were set, which were numbered from 1 to 17, each one was given a title, as well as what it implied and the time to fulfill them.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an initiative of the UN General Assembly, was signed by 193 countries with a specific goal: a global pact that would guide humanity towards greater well-being. All issues are a priority, from the eradication of extreme poverty to the reduction of inequality, including inclusive economic growth in sustainable cities.
At that time there were 15 years to go and it was not impossible to fulfill the roadmap, to which companies, academia and civil society organizations joined. Now, with just over seven years to go, we are further than ever from achieving what was agreed upon.
Although it is true that no one could have foreseen a pandemic –which took almost three years of action from the plan–, the effervescence and uncertainty at the political and economic level that we are experiencing today was not foreseen either. Nor was the possibility of a war on the border of Europe in any scenario, neither more nor less than with Russia as the protagonist.
If we review the agenda, there is regression in at least six of the 17 sustainable development goals (known as the SDGs): zero hunger, decent work and economic growth, sustainable cities and communities, climate action, life on land and peace , justice and strong institutions. Some goals managed not to stagnate, such as the drop in infant mortality and greater access to electricity, mobile telephony and the Internet.
The goal of narrowing the gap between the poorest and the richest was one of the points in which the objectives were worst (largely to blame for COVID-19): according to the World Labor Organization, world unemployment this year it will reach 207 million people, some 21 million more than in 2019. The pandemic left 77 million people in a situation of poverty, even among those who have jobs. The share of workers living in extreme poverty rose from 6.7% in 2019 to 7.2% in 2020.
In inequality, the picture is also bleak. In 2020, the number of individuals living in extreme poverty increased from 119 to 224 million, the first increase in poverty globally in 21 years. According to Oxfam, the collective fortunes of the world’s 10 richest people more than doubled in the first two years of the pandemic, from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion. In the same period, the income of 99% of the world’s population fell and more than 160 million people fell into poverty.
Fighting hunger already sounds like a chimera rather than an objective. The Russian invasion of Ukraine added an extra component to the weak food security of the signatory countries. kyiv and Moscow are global leaders in the production of basic grains and fertilizers.
“Reaching zero hunger by 2030 seemed unattainable in 2019, but now it is virtually impossible,” Qu Dongyu, director of the UN Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO), recently declared. There are 828 million people who are hungry today, 150 million more than before the pandemic.
And as a bonus, worldwide we are going through the highest inflation of the last 40 years (with the United States reaching an interannual record of 7%, unprecedented since 1982). And the same thing happens at the local level, with a rise in prices never seen in the last two decades.
Like few crises, that of the coronavirus caused a global change in which each country was left to owe its citizens. It is time for the UN to review its objectives and for the 193 allies to put together a new agenda, no less ambitious but much more realistic.
Editor’s note: Barbara Anderson is a business and finance editor, columnist, and speaker. Disability rights activist; He runs yotambien.mx, a news site about inclusion. Follow her on Twitter as The opinions published in this column belong exclusively to the author.
