Covid-19 with sustainable environment.
There is a real concern that focusing resources on mitigating the acute impacts of COVID-19 could reduce resources for sustainable development programmes in general, crowding out important initiatives in 2021 and beyond,” says the UNEP’s Salman Hussain, who coordinated the report.
"The world needs consistency and coherence between emergency relief and long-term objectives for sustainability, resilience and equity.
The Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015, contain 17 targets designed to combat poverty, bolster healthcare and improve education while safeguarding the environment.
The pandemic is threatening to reverse decades of progress towards those goals. Up to 100 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty this year because of COVID-19, which would mark the first rise in penury since 1998, said the report. proposes several ways to curb the virus and promote economic recovery while supporting sustainable development and bolstering food systems.
Beyond the macro numbers, the analysis says the pandemic is impacting lives and livelihoods. Simulations using the recent Household Budget Survey data released in December 2019 show that the crisis could push 500,000 more citizens below the poverty line, particularly those in urban settings relying on self-employment and informal/micro enterprises.
“The vulnerable people especially those employed in the informal economy are likely to bear the most severe impacts,” says Mara Warwick, World Bank Country Director for Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“They tend to live in congested settlements with limited access to basic services and they also lack adequate safety nets and have limited savings. Women and women-headed families will be more significantly impacted.”
Chopped by
