SDIS21: Beyond Geopolitics - What are the challenges in making our world more sustainable?

The past year has seen one crisis after another – from extreme wildfires and heatwaves and hurricanes, to the refugee crisis following the collapse of Afghanistan’s government, to the continued need to address systemic racism, including environmental racism. Meanwhile, COVID-19 is not waning, with cases and deaths rising as vaccine disinformation causes deep rifts and vaccine inequality remains a challenge.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the challenges we face in building a better, more inclusive world for everyone. And it’s made worse by the fact that many of us remain separated physically, while mistrust of international institutions and each other grows deeper.

"The effects of the pandemic should serve as a catalyst for changing course – away from competition and towards cooperation," according to the Forum's "Principles for Strengthening Global Cooperation".

"Making progress on immediate priorities, including developing and distributing COVID-19 vaccines and effecting economic and societal recoveries, all while taking more ambitious action on long-standing challenges such as climate change and inequity, requires purposeful, coordinated effort. Greater resilience can only occur if leaders rebuild or reimagine instruments for greater collaboration," the report argues.

The Forum’s virtual Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2021, taking place 20-23 September, will provide a chance to discuss how we can come back together to build a more sustainable, inclusive world.

All 17 SDGs play a role in building a better, more inclusive world – but two in particular focus on geopolitics:

SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Targets include:

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals. This comprehensive goal aims to implement and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. Developed countries must fully implement official development commitments and work to assist developing countries with other financial challenges. Additional targets include:

We have seen progress in recent years. For example, 2020 saw the lowest number of journalists killed in a decade (62), says the UN Sustainable Development Goal Report 2021 – though that could be due to lockdowns and restricted travel. More countries, including one in three LDCs, have internationally compliant national human rights institutions, compared with one in five in 2015.

But this progress is not nearly enough – and given the impacts of COVID-19, we’re off track to meet many 2030 targets.

“At the end of 2020, about 1% of the global population – 82.4 million people – had been forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict or generalized violence,” according to the UN's latest SDG report. This doesn’t account for the past eight months of crises in Lebanon and Ethiopia, at the United States’ southern border and now, Afghanistan, which alone could displace at least half a million people, as Forum experts explained.

Children are especially vulnerable. Currently, one in three trafficking victims are children; 72% are girls. “Previous economic crises suggest that the sharp increase in adult unemployment rates and an asymmetric global recovery from COVID-19 is likely to increase the risk of tracking.” Furthermore, at the start of 2020, one in 10 children were engaged in child labour, with 79 million in hazardous work. “The impacts of COVID-19 threaten to push an additional 8.9 million children into child labour by the end of 2022.”

We need strong international institutions and collaboration – but these, too, have been “shaky,” says the UN report. Foreign direct investment (FDI) fell 40% in 2020, dropping below $1 trillion for the first time since 2005.”

“Recovery from the [COVID] crisis and sustainable development must be built on a foundation of peace, stability, respect for human rights, effective governance and the rule of law,” continues the UN report. We are seeing many signs of the world coming together – such as the fact that foreign aid reached an “all-time high” of $161 billion in 2020.

Now, as we come together to solve the climate crisis – which could have a far worse impact than COVID-19 – we need to renew the spirit of international partnership for a better world.