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Urgent response needed as pandemic slows progress on SDGs: Experts
The COVID-19 crisis appears likely to impede Indonesia’s progress on its 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda.
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Setback: The 2020 Sustainable Development Report warns that the COVID-19 pandemic could cause severe impacts on most SDGs, specifically those of ending poverty, ending hunger, achieving health and wellbeing and providing decent work and economic growth.
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iscal stability and greater engagement at the local level are required for countries to stay on track in achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), experts say, as the COVID-19 pandemic appears likely to impede Indonesia’s progress on its 2030 agenda.
Economic contraction, deepening poverty and growing unemployment rates related to COVID-19 threaten the country’s achievements, said Amalia A. Widyasanti, head of the National SDG Secretariat under the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas).
Read also: A determined path to the SDGs in 2030 despite COVID-19
The government, nongovernment institutions, agencies, the private sector and civil society must be collaborate robustly, she said.
“This is a good time to start strengthening stakeholder collaboration so that we can mitigate the risk of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in the long term, [...] achieve the 2030 agenda,” Amalia said during a webinar on Wednesday.
The government has responded to the pandemic with a national economic recovery plan and stimulus packages, Amalia noted, but observers believe maintaining progress on the SDGs was also important to bring about sustainable development for all.
COVID-19 has hit the poorest Indonesians, such as those who work in the informal sector, the hardest, which has inhibited the nation’s progress toward the elimination of poverty, the first SDG.
