Welcome to the United Nations
“Sustainable and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that promotes the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development: building an inclusive and effective path for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda in the context of the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development”
1. Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: UNU institutes across the globe have identified several critical impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the implementation of the SDGs under review in the 2021 HLPF including:
a. Digital service and delivery: digital technological solutions have been widely adopted in response to COVID-19, affecting how people work, communicate, consume, produce and learn. While public service delivery using digital technologies has accelerated to cope with the pandemic impacts, there remains continued risk of further inequalities (SDG 10) with the exclusion of marginalized individuals, communities and countries. Governments with digital service production and delivery systems have been faster and better at assessing and responding to the crisis compared to emerging economies or those with federally fragmented service delivery.
b. Work and livelihoods: Employment opportunities (SDG 8) have been impacted in the short-term, with job losses in some countries concentrated on low-wage workers, women and minority groups. Access to alternative sources of income, especially for vulnerable populations in urban/peri-urban centres have also been affected. In other cases, new channels and opportunities have opened where communities have pooled resources, and improvements in awareness of local consumption and links between human and environmental health have been seen (SDG 10). The short-term effects of the pandemic have had a large impact on employment in the developing world, in particular due to extensive engagement and reliance on global trade through global value chains, falling unequally on marginalized segments of society and exacerbating existing inequalities (SDG 8).
c. Reallocation of resources: A focus on funding for the public health crisis has seen resources diverted from programmes and projects on other SDGs, including on climate change (SDG 13) where studies in climate-affected areas have been discontinued; on education (SDG 43) where learning centres have been closed, and (new) partnerships with national governments and donors (SDG 17) have been impacted; and on responsible consumption (SDG 12) which has seen a decline in public interest due to the focus on priorities to deal with the pandemic.
2. Actions, policy guidance, progress, challenges and areas requiring urgent attention identified by UNU institutes include:
a. Governance: i. Governing with new technologies: while the advent of digital innovations has made communication between governments and their citizens easier, there remains a lack of understanding in how to make these tools effective in decision-making and fit-for-purpose for governance, while also exacerbating risk of misuse of the same technologies4. More research is needed to identify aspects of personal privacy, societal security and formulation of regulatory norms to cope with these technological changes. ii. Systems thinking: the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the inadequacy of fragmented and siloed approaches to managing global risks while also trying to transition towards sustainability. Acceleration towards the SDGs will require new perspectives, new thinking and new approaches starting with systems thinking to analyse complex systems across environmental, social and economic domains. Policymaking will need to be more integrated, coherent and inclusive.
b. Investment: as countries prioritise economic recovery from the pandemic, meeting the needs of the most vulnerable requires greater support and investment for small-and-medium-sized enterprises, particularly those in primary production and livelihood activities, as well as accelerating efforts to provide adequate, safe and affordable housing with people-centred and pro-poor housing policies. Significant changes to existing infrastructure policies are also required to continue the transition towards sustainable consumption and production. For example, strategies for transforming the value chain for food consumption should be aimed at strengthening food security and nutrition systems, improving food quality, building resilience and reducing environmental impact.
c. Employment opportunities: governments responses to recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic may become a catalyst for more rapid deployment of automated technologies. This brings with it a risk of diminished employment opportunities in some sectors, particularly low-skilled workers, women and those from developing countries. Specific policy responses to the continued impact of automation on job opportunities will be required.
d. Diversification: the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on trade and global value chains in the developing world are expected to be significant. Supply chain disruptions may lead to firms investing more in automation to limit these negative effects, while also encouraging a greater focus on geographically closer suppliers or increased diversification of suppliers. Policy responses to these impacts will need to be broad including diversifying from traditional sectors within global value chains which can be automated to more dynamic and new sectors such as creative/digital economies, and non-routine tasks. e. Knowledge sharing and capacity development: the combination of computational capacity, advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, smart devices and their use on harnessing data requires more understanding. While interdisciplinary knowledge fields are being applied to these areas with traditional research areas of computer, data and statistical sciences working in conjunction with those from the social, environmental and earth sciences, many countries lag behind in accessing these new branches of knowledge. Democratisation of big data and artificial intelligence research, with a focus on upholding personal privacy, national prosperity and socio-political security, should become a priority area for governments world-wide.
