Climate, biodiversity, inequalities… how to steer the SDGs back on track
Highlights • The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the result of intense diplomatic negotiations, and universally applicable: their scope of action extends beyond the now increasingly blurred borders between the developed and the develop-
ing worlds. They form a policy framework that aims to ensure greater coherence between the social, environmental and
economic goals, whereas these matters had previously been dealt with in separate diplomatic, political and institutional circles. The 2030 Agenda encourages us to seek synergies
and tackle the tensions between some of these objectives.
• Five years on from the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, it is now time for a first assessment of progress achieved.
− The headway made on the goals are uneven. Even though it
is too early to carry out a quantitative assessment, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are expected to undermine some of the progress achieved on the SDGs, particularly on the
themes of poverty, health and education. Some trends, on
climate, biodiversity or combating inequality, were already clearly heading in the wrong direction even before the
Covid-19 pandemic. This subverts the spirit of the SDGs, which is precisely not to sacrifice any of the aspects of sustainable development. There is a grave risk that we end up with a
“cherry-picking” logic, in which each country, each territory or
even each institution chooses to move forward on those SDGs that it deems priorities, which may mean losing sight of the systemic approach advocated by the 2030 Agenda.
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