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	Extending the Sustainable Development Goals to 2050 by Johan Rockstrom, Jeffrey Sachs, Mariana Mazzucato Nature, agencies   Extending the Sustainable Development Goals to 2050. The world should redouble its efforts on the SDGs, not abandon them. Here’s how to progress the United Nations’ agenda towards 2050, write Francesco Fuso Nerini, Mariana Mazzucato, Johan Rockstrom, Harro van Asselt, Jim Hall, Stelvia Matos, Asa Persson, Benjamin Sovacool, Ricardo Vinuesa & Jeffrey Sachs in Nature:   The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been widely endorsed by governments, civil society and the private sector as a framework for creating a better world. Yet, as the 2030 deadline for achieving them looms, it is clear that most, if not all, will remain unmet. Most countries are way off track; only a few targets are in reach.   This lag stems in part from the slowing of the global economy by shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and international conflicts, which weren’t anticipated in 2015 when the goals were agreed. The goals require deep transformations in education, health, energy, land use, urban infrastructure and digital platforms, financed and implemented in an integrated manner. Governments are struggling to fund long-term investments in infrastructure. And the sheer range of targets, across all sectors of the economy and at local, national, regional and global levels, challenges current modes of governance.   There is insufficient finance to enable low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to achieve the SDGs4. Many nations are in debt distress after the pandemic and face a tight schedule of repayments, which is setting back development. Weak domestic institutions and corruption5 further hamper the flow of equity and debt finance to LMICs.   SDG actions, too, often remain siloed, and strategies unaligned. For example, as well as increasing spending on health, many COVID-19 recovery packages poured money into shoring up carbon-intensive industries rather than boosting renewables. Only a handful of countries’ climate commitments under the Paris agreement take into account broader SDG outcomes, including impacts on incomes, poverty, jobs, inequality, health and education.   Given all these constraints, some people have argued that the world should take stock and focus on fewer sustainability goals and targets. We disagree. Because all of these global crises are interlinked, only a holistic and global approach to solving them will work. The SDGs should remain at the centre of global policy agendas.   Therefore, we call on member states of the United Nations, in the run-up to the UN Summit of the Future in September, to adapt and extend the SDG framework to 2050. This will entail setting interim targets for 2030 and 2040 and final targets for 2050 that align with science and maintain high, yet achievable, national and global ambitions.   To support those discussions, here we highlight six priorities that we consider crucial, along with a schedule for action (see ‘Revised global actions and timelines’). Some goals can and should be met by 2030. Others will need more time and ambition, such as achieving net-zero carbon energy systems by 2050. The structures of international finance need to be reformed. And emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) must be incorporated.   Adapting the SDGs for 2050 will first require wide consultations, including with scientists, Indigenous populations, marginalized communities and the private sector. Inclusiveness is essential for maintaining the awareness and legitimacy that the framework enjoys today.   All 2050 targets must be clear and measurable, using indicators that are widely accepted and easy to implement. For example, an effective climate-action goal (SDG 13) should be based on net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century, as well as actionable climate-resilience goals.   Cutting-edge technologies must be included. For example, AI could affect all the SDGs, both positively and negatively. Global agreements on regulation will be needed, to stop the proliferation of AI-driven autonomous weapons, misinformation and inequalities.   Measures of cross-border impacts, or spillovers, need to be better integrated into SDG targets, to ensure that progress in one region does not come at the expense of another. Many high-income countries have practices that hinder SDG progress in LMICs, including importing goods that have environmental impacts overseas, supporting tax havens and the dumping of electronic and other wastes.   Ensure a healthy planet   The SDG agenda depends on and must ensure a safe operating space for humanity on Earth. A physically stable environment is a prerequisite for human well-being. Yet the world is transgressing six of nine planetary limits or ‘boundaries’ that regulate its stability and functioning — including in areas such as climate change, biodiversity and more. Surpassing these limits puts Earth’s entire life-support system at risk, and with it the chance to eradicate poverty and hunger and achieve good lives for all.   Scientists must set out pathways for updating the SDG targets and milestones to return Earth to a safe operating zone within two decades. Global CO2 emissions must reach net zero by 2040–50. Global biodiversity loss must be halted in the next decade, and investments made to protect and regenerate intact and managed ecosystems. Patterns of resource extraction and use, covering everything from rare-earth metals to construction materials and nutrients, must shift towards circular models.   Strengthening global governance to achieve this transition will be challenging in the current geopolitical context. But the world has frameworks, agreed by all countries, that provide workable plans for accelerating and scaling sustainable transitions. These include, for example, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The task is to shift the focus from negotiating over problems to delivering solutions, and to introduce strong enforcement mechanisms.   All economic transactions need to account for the true cost of planetary damage. This requires a price on carbon, as well as tariffs on activities that undermine the functioning of ecosystems, freshwater cycles, marine systems and biochemical flows. The global financial system, starting with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and regional development banks, needs to agree on universal principles for de-risking sustainable investments in LMICs, and putting an end to investments in planet-damaging operations.   Although some high-income countries, such as some in the EU, have made progress towards the SDGs, they must continue to support worldwide efforts. Vulnerabilities of nations that are especially exposed to climate-change impacts, including small island states, must be addressed. Financial support should be provided, ranging from direct cash payments to climate-resilient debt clauses. Human capacity building should be driven by the nations’ adaptation needs and capacities, diverse ecosystems and socio-economic settings.   Accountability mechanisms are currently scattered and irregular, and must be strengthened. These include regular follow-up, transparent reporting and systems to hold actors accountable for missed targets, at local, national and global levels. Peer review, in which countries review each other’s performances, could be considered, as well as recognition and rewards for the best perfomers. New tools to make the SDGs more politically important to governments are urgently needed.   A new economics of the common good is needed, too — for setting shared goals and working out how to achieve them. This involves cross-cultural respect and cooperation, the cultivation of civic virtues and defending the dignity of the socially, politically and economically marginalized — with not just words but also policies and collaborations involving government, business, workers and civil society. Diverse voices and sources of knowledge must be brought to the table to discuss what it means to co-create a just and sustainable economy.   We recommend that at the Summit of the Future, UN member states resolve that an updated and reinvigorated SDG framework should guide national action and global cooperation until 2050.   Regarding planetary health, UN member states should establish a global governance mechanism to address planetary stability and security, with a focus on the risks of exceeding planetary boundaries that will lead to unmanageable and irreversible intergenerational damage to life-support systems.   Regarding financing, member states should agree to adopt the SDG Stimulus programme to bolster official financing and debt relief. In addition, a reformed global financial architecture, including global taxation on fossil-fuel emissions, air travel, shipping and international financial transactions, should be adopted at the Financing for Development Summit in 2025.   Regarding policy support and cooperation, the whole UN system should work to ensure policy and financial coherence with the SDG agenda. By embracing a comprehensive approach, the global community can ensure sustainable development for all by mid-century, leaving no one behind.   http://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01754-6 http://dashboards.sdgindex.org/ http://sdgtransformationcenter.org/reports/sustainable-development-report-2024 http://www.ids.ac.uk/opinions/a-new-era-for-social-protection/ http://www.unep.org/resources/global-foresight-report http://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2301531121 http://sdg.iisd.org/commentary/guest-articles/ensuring-corporate-accountability-to-leave-no-one-behind/ http://ipes-food.org/the-global-food-crisis-in-the-age-of-catastrophe/ http://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/2024/07/recording-of-the-event-at-the-hlpf-is-the-debt-crisis-killing-the-sdgs/ http://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/category/civil-society-call-for-a-global-fund-for-social-protection/ http://www.childbenefitstracker.org/post/post-1 http://www.endchildhoodpoverty.org/publications-global-coalition-publications http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-stories/2024-06-19-basic-income-could-solve-global-poverty-and-stop-environmental-destruction-study-finds.html http://www.cell.com/cell-reports-sustainability/fulltext/S2949-7906(24)00164-2 http://sdgs.un.org/goals http://hlpf.un.org/SDG_progress_reports http://sdgs.un.org/publications/synergy-solutions-climate-and-sdg-action-bridging-ambition-gap-future-we-want-56106 Visit the related web page
	Will growth be enough to end poverty by World Institute for Development Economics Research   Will growth be enough to end poverty, ask Arief Anshory Yusuf, Zuzy Anna, Ahmad Komarulzaman and Andy Sumner. (UNU Wider)   Today, October 17th is the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. In new analysis for UNU-WIDER, we assess progress towards the global poverty-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically monetary poverty, undernutrition, child and maternal mortality, and access to clean water and basic sanitation. Our analysis then looks forward, making projections on the state of global progress over the coming years, up to the 2030 deadline for meeting the SDGs.   It’s not looking good. Our findings show that economic growth alone will not be enough to end global poverty and meet the global poverty-related SDGs, which will be missed by a considerable distance. That’s just numbers – we need to remember what they mean in terms that are all too human: millions of lives blighted unnecessarily by sickness, poverty, and death.   These basic goals will not be achieved by 2030 without radical changes in policies to address national and global inequalities. Stronger emphasis is needed on inclusive growth and productive capacities (a.k.a. SDG 8) alongside social policy.   In the 1980s, many developing countries experienced stagnant or declining progress on many indicators of standards of living, earning the decade the infamous ‘lost decade’ label. Our sobering new projections indicate we may face another lost decade in the 2020s unless urgent action is taken.   We make new projections across a set of poverty-related SDGs with a consistent methodology. We chose 7 indicators based on their strong historic correlation to GDP per capita (which we test) and the existence of sufficient country-level data to make projections. This enables credible projections using the growth forecasts.   Why now? This year is halfway to the 2030 deadline, from 2015 when the SDGs were agreed. Further, our estimates use economic growth forecasts that take into account recent global shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the inflation shock triggered by the Ukraine war.   What do we find? Widespread failure to meet the set of poverty-related SDGs.   Here are the headline findings for countries of the Global South: over 600 million people will remain in extreme poverty in 2030; the number of undernourished people will be higher in 2030 than in 2015, when the SDGs were agreed, reaching 665 million in 2030. More than 1 in 5 children will be stunted in 2030.   There will be an increase in the number of people living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and low-income countries (LICs), though most of world’s undernourished people will continue to be in middle-income countries.   1 in 10 of the population of developing countries will still lack access to clean water; 1 in 3 people in SSA and in LICs. More than 1 in 5 people in developing countries will still lack basic sanitation, with 2/3 of people in SSA and in LICs lacking access to basic sanitation.   In short, the findings are sobering. A potential ‘new lost decade’. The major constraint on growth and progress towards the SDGs will be debt-servicing, which will limit social and productive spending in the Global South between now and 2030.   In fact, that is the root cause of this potentially catastrophic failure: the post-pandemic debt overhang and rising interest rates are triggering a new era of austerity across much of the Global South to ensure that debt repayments are met.   This in turn is hampering governments’ abilities to raise incomes and spend what is need on the SDGs (and could delay essential climate adaptation investments).   What should be done? Urgent policy action is required. There is an urgent need for redistributive measures.   To change course, we need urgent policy action on two fronts:   First, a stronger focus is needed on inclusive growth and productive capacities. Specifically, new international financing needs to be made available through debt relief or other forms of finance to expand fiscal space across countries of the Global South to ensure that a stronger focus on SDG 8 can happen. This financing should ensure social and productive spending expands, rather than contracts.   Second, that focus should entail redistribution alongside growth, through policies that build productive capacities, introduce, or expand income transfers to meet the extreme poverty target, and ensure sufficient public investment to meet the health, water, and sanitation SDGs.   In short, today’s trajectory demands a forceful, seismic shift towards redistribution, nationally and globally.   It also requires new finance to flow to the Global South. Facing lost decades past and present, radical policy changes now provide the only hope of ending global poverty. This is the pathway to have any hope of achieving the poverty-related SDGs.   * Arief Anshory Yusuf is Professor of Economics, Padjadjaran University, Indonesia. Zuzy Anna is a lecturer at Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, Universitas Padjadjaran. Ahmad Komarulzaman is a Lecturer and researcher at the Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University. Andy Sumner is Professor of International Development at King’s College London.   http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/will-growth-be-enough-end-poverty http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/new-estimates-cost-ending-poverty http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/just-transitions-and-importance-social-protection-reforms-ambitious-climate-action http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/are-knowledge-monopolies-driving-global-inequality   Development aid cuts will hit fragile countries hard, and could fuel violent conflict, write Patricia Justino and Laura Saavedra-Lux.   Fragile and least developed countries have had their development assistance cut drastically, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. For instance, net official development assistance to sub-Saharan African countries has shrunk by 7.8% compared to 2021. And development aid for peace and conflict prevention has declined to its lowest in 15 years.   These cuts will hit fragile countries hard. Fragile countries make up 24% of the world’s population and account for 73% of the world’s extreme poor. The list includes Mali, Lebanon, Somalia, Syria and Iraq.   Budget cuts are already having far-reaching effects and fuelling humanitarian crises. The World Food Programme estimates that “every one percent cut in food assistance risks pushing more than 400,000 people towards the brink of starvation”.   UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has warned that aid cuts threaten to undo gains in development. Keeping in mind that poverty has increased in conflict-affected countries despite a global downward trend, we anticipate that such a reversal could contribute to global instability.   Violent conflict has already been on the rise among countries that rely heavily on foreign financial assistance. Decades of research (including ours) show that marginalised populations are most vulnerable to be (re-)mobilised into fighting and are typically also most affected by armed conflict (even after violence ends).   It is true that political and societal context matters and needs to be taken into account. But the reduction in aid allocation to least developed countries and especially those recovering from violent conflict could put fragile countries on a trajectory of (renewed) political instability and underdevelopment. Already vulnerable populations will have to yet again carry the brunt of new cycles of violence and impoverishment.   We have been researching links between development and violent conflict for decades and close to a decade, respectively. Our latest research project is on the institutional legacies of violent conflict. It shows how and why violent conflicts persist, how and why their legacies endure, and what can be done to reduce the risk and impact of violence. We recommend that development aid needs to correspond more closely with mounting peacebuilding and humanitarian needs in fragile settings.   Not all development aid is effective in bringing stability or building peace. Nevertheless, based on our analysis, development aid plays a crucial role in six key areas.   Firstly, development aid is effective when linked to the delivery of public services. These in turn strengthen the social contract and mitigate the risk of violence.   Secondly, financial assistance can help governments absorb the effects of economic shocks. Economies across the global south are already stifled by the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, climate risks and the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine. Fragile countries often rely on assistance to meet some of their population’s most basic needs such as food or water.   Without additional financial assistance many governments will not be able to manage their way through these shocks. That may embolden violent non-state actors to gain power.   Two examples stand out. In west Africa violent non-state actors operating in the Sahel region are set to expand their influence into new areas considered stable thus far, such as the north of Cote d’Ivoire.   Similarly, the current Israel-Palestine conflict risks spreading instability into neighbouring countries amid longstanding tensions and economic fragility.   Thirdly, cuts in development aid may reduce the limited leverage western countries still have to prevent the rise of opportunistic armed groups such as the Wagner Group, the spread of extremism and the risk of civil conflicts.   The Sahel region is also emblematic for this dynamic. Mali and Burkina Faso have seen the deadliest year on record as their military transitional governments struggle to contain jihadist insurgencies. Since the recent military coup in Niger, which prompted withdrawal of both aid and international troops, the country has also experienced a surge in militant violence.   Fourth, worsening economic and security conditions in fragile and least developed countries are already reverberating into Europe. There have been spikes in irregular border crossings into European Union countries in 2023.   Fifth, rising discrepancy in development aid allocation could amplify mistrust in international institutions and western actors. That could contribute to worsening security situations. Some governments in fragile countries are already reluctant to continue to engage with the UN and especially western actors to combat violent non-state actors.   An example of this is the Democratic Republic of Congo’s recent request to the UN for an “accelerated” withdrawal of troops. It comes 24 years after the start of Monusco, the UN’s peacekeeping mission in DRC, one of the largest in the world. Violence may increase in the absence of such international intervention, as has happened since the withdrawal of Minusma, the UN mission that was in Mali for ten years.   Sixth, the reduction in aid allocation to least developed countries and especially those recovering from violent conflict could result in continued political instability and underdevelopment.   Development funding should be allocated in a way that corresponds more closely with peacebuilding and humanitarian needs. This is also made clear in the UN’s New Agenda for Peace. It calls for action now to reinforce the cooperative frameworks that are necessary to move us from the path to destruction to the path to prosperity … based on a reforged commitment to multilateral solutions, grounded on trust, solidarity and universality.   Correcting course in aid allocation could address some of the growing mistrust among developing countries and support prospects for peace.   * Patricia Justino is Deputy Director at UNU-WIDER and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in the UK. Laura Saavedra-Lux is Research Associate at UNU-WIDER.   http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/development-aid-cuts-will-hit-fragile-countries-hard-could-fuel-violent-conflict http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/welfare-works-redistribution-way-create-less-violent-less-unequal-societies http://www.wider.unu.edu/blog Visit the related web page
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