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UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) Policy Briefs
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs provides thought leadership through its UN DESA Policy Briefs series, presenting timely and relevant analysis and policy guidance on global economic and social issues.
1 - 20 of 28 results
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Impact of COVID-19: Perspective from Voluntary National Reviews
Publication Date: October 2020More LessCOVID-19 (coronavirus) is having a profound effect on the socioeconomic development of countries and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development undermining SDG progress and exacerbating already existing inequalities and exclusion. A variety of mitigation measures are being put in place, through great efforts and at great cost, to address the impact of COVID-19 and reduce the risk of future crises, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable people and countries. It is important to work in an emergency mode to respond to the health impact, but also to keep the focus on the longer term, building resilience and using the 2030 Agenda as a roadmap. Multilateralism and global solidarity are essential to build back better by responding to COVID-19 in a way that supports the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and SDGs, bolsters results and addresses gaps in sustainable development.
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Achieving SDGs in the Wake of COVID-19
Publication Date: September 2020More LessThe COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis has revealed some fundamental development challenges that countries face and could be converted into an opportunity for recovering better, if much of the resources aimed at recovery are directed toward promoting the SDGs. Establishment of robust universal healthcare and social protection systems should be taken as immediate goals, and efforts should be made to build upon the emergency measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis so as to reach these goals.
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Recovering from COVID-19
Authors: Yern Fai Lee and Wenyan YangPublication Date: July 2020More LessThe COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has exposed inadequacies in health systems worldwide. As countries plan for recovery, attention should be paid not only to the strengthening of health systems at the national level, but also at the global level through investing in global public goods for health. International solidarity and multilateral support are needed to forge a stronger global health system. They are a vital part of the crisis recovery process to build a future resilient against epidemics, pandemics and other health challenges in a globalized world.
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COVID-19 and a Primer on Shock-responsive Social Protection Systems
Author: Martijn KindPublication Date: July 2020More LessThe responsiveness of social protection systems to health and other shocks can be strengthened in a number of ways. Programme design can be tweaked to better handle large-scale shocks. Novel programmes can build on existing social protection infrastructure. The value or duration of a programme can be temporarily increased. To reach those most in need, existing programmes can be expanded to include new beneficiaries. Lastly, different programmes can be aligned to create synergies in programme delivery. Risks of implementing more shockresponsive social protection include overwhelming demand, lack of coordination, poor targeting and negative public perception. These can be partially offset by ensuring universal access to programmes. In response to the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 (coronavirus), a majority of countries have rolled out emergency measures to support their citizens. The pandemic is pushing existing social protection programmes to the brink, with demand far beyond usual operating capacity. To build back better, now and in the future, governments should take this opportunity to review and strengthen the shock-responsiveness of their social protections systems.
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Impact of COVID-19 on SDG Progress
Publication Date: September 2020More LessCOVID-19 (coronavirus) is having a devastating impact on all 17 Goals and threatening the achievements already made in many areas. While the virus has impacted everyone, it is the poorest and most vulnerable who are affected disproportionally by the pandemic. To recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, we must put people at the centre of the response to achieve more equitable and resilient outcomes for all. The SDGs and the Paris Agreement are our compass to a transformative recovery that reduces the risk of future crises and brings the inclusive and sustainable development.
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Forests: At the Heart of a Green Recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic
Author: Mita SenPublication Date: July 2020More LessThis brief highlights how forests and the forestry sector provide essential services and products to support health and livelihoods during times of crisis, how investing in sustainable forest management and forestry jobs offer opportunities for a green recovery, and how healthy forests build resilience against future pandemics. In this context, it proposes policy recommendations to ensure that forest-based solutions be considered for recovery from the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and building back better.
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The Role of Public Service and Public Servants During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Authors: John-Mary Kauzya and Elizabeth NilandPublication Date: July 2020More LessFor the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to be achieved effective delivery of public services is needed, including in the response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. If not contained, the pandemic will jeopardize meeting the 2030 deadline, by diverting resources from development efforts to crisis response. The public servant sits at the heart of ensuring effective response to the crisis, whether as a frontline worker in healthcare, or in devising strategies and plans to mitigate its impact. This policy paper outlines nine key roles public servants have been and must continue to play to ensure an effective response to the pandemic. In order to effectively play these roles, a public servant must have a profile characterized by the following: selfsacrifice, trustworthiness, risk-taking, versatility, adaptability, creativity, transparency and accountability, and they must be knowledgeable and skilled, persistent, empathetic, collaborative, and competent in the use of technology all driven by humanness in their personality.
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Achieving the SDGs through the COVID-19 Response and Recovery
Authors: Shantanu Mukherjee and Astra BoniniPublication Date: July 2020More LessThe impact of COVID-19 (coronavirus) on SDG achievement will only be known with certainty in the months to come, but assessments for 2020 are bleak. If responses are ad hoc, underfunded and without a view to long-term goals, decades of progress stand to be reversed. However, as countries begin to move towards recovery, coherent and comprehensive actions can place the world on a robust trajectory towards achieving sustainable development. The channels through which the impacts will unfold are being identified and indicate that pre-pandemic progress on many SDGs can mitigate impacts. Building upon this insight, this brief suggests that the multilateral system can be pivotal in supporting three strategic priorities during the response and recovery that can set a course for achieving the SDGs—maintaining progress already made; enabling universal access to an expanded set of quality essential services; and reversing the degradation of nature.
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How can Investors Move From Greenwashing to SDG-enabling?
Authors: Mathieu Verougstraete and Shari SpiegelPublication Date: June 2020More LessCompanies must adapt their business model to reflect growing risks and uncertainties, and help build a sustainable world; doing so is necessary to preserve their financial performance in the long run Investors have the financial resources to push companies to change, but lack the necessary tools given limited reliable data on non-financial issues. A common definition of Sustainable Development Investing (SDI) would be a first step in ensuring that investments presented as “sustainable” make a meaningful contribution to the global goals but implementing such definition will require strengthened mandatory reporting requirements.
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COVID-19 Poses Grievous Economic Challenge to Landlocked Developing Countries
Authors: Hamid Rashid, Grigor Agabekian, Helena Afonso and Andrea GrozdanicPublication Date: June 2020More LessThe Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is increasing the risks of a balance of payments crisis, a food crisis and a debt crisis in landlocked developing countries (LLDC). A few LLDCs—with extremely high levels of external debt owed to private creditors—are particularly vulnerable. The unfolding multiple crisis may trigger instability, violence and conflict in many LLDCs, particularly in countries that have been mired in conflicts and civil wars in recent years. » High levels of income inequality in LLDCs may undermine their ability to implement effective stimulus measures to support the most vulnerable segments of their population. Timely international support is helping LLDCs avoid an immediate crisis but a long-term rescue and recovery plan is needed to steer their economies towards meaningful structural changes.
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COVID-19: Reaffirming State-People Governance Relationships
Author: John-Mary KauzyaPublication Date: June 2020More LessThis policy brief discusses the role of effective governance, and in particular the role of the relationship between the state and people, in building countries’ resiliency and in responding to and managing nation-wide crises such as the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.
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Resilient Institutions in Times of Crisis: Transparency, Accountability and Participation at the National Level Key to Effective Response to COVID-19
Authors: Aránzazu Guillán Montero and David Le BlancPublication Date: June 2020More LessThe coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presents a risk to key dimensions of national institutions highlighted in Sustainable Development Goal 16 (in terms of limiting transparency and access to information, eroding safeguards to accountability including integrity violations, fraud and corruption, and restricting participation and engagement). However, these institutional dimensions are also critical to providing a resilient response to the crisis. In many countries, governments, accountability institutions and civil society are innovating to mitigate institutional disruptions while ensuring an effective response to the pandemic. In the aftermath of the crisis, drawing lessons in terms of the resilience of national institutions will be a key undertaking in order to ensure effective and accountable government.
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The Impact of COVID-19 on Sport, Physical Activity and Well-being and its Effects on Social Development
Authors: Daniela Bas, Melissa Martin, Carol Pollack and Robert VennePublication Date: June 2020More LessThis policy brief highlights the challenges COVID-19 (coronavirus) has posed to both the sporting world and to physical activity and well-being, including for marginalized or vulnerable groups. It further provides recommendations for Governments and other stakeholders, as well as for the UN system, to support the safe reopening of sporting events, as well as to support physical activity during the pandemic and beyond.
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COVID-19 and Sovereign Debt
Authors: Shari Spiegel, Oliver Schwank and Mohamed ObaidyPublication Date: June 2020More LessWithout aggressive policy action, the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic could turn into a protracted debt crisis for many developing countries. The note puts forward concrete proposals to expand on the G20 bilateral debt moratorium and to facilitate investments in recovery and the SDGs, including for highly-indebted middle-income countries that request a standstill, and by bringing in other creditors. Time gained by the standstill must be used to develop sustainable solutions to the debt challenges of developing countries—to ‘build back better’. Such debt relief should be part of broader financing and recovery strategies that take SDG investment needs into consideration, for example through country-led Integrated national financing frameworks. This is also the the time to also address long-standing gaps in the international financial architecture for sovereign debt.
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COVID-19 Pandemic Deals a Huge Blow to the Manufacturing Exports From LDCs
Authors: Hamid Rashid, Marcelo LaFleur, Sebastian Vergara and Andrea GrozdanicPublication Date: June 2020More LessThe COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic poses a significant economic challenge to LDCs that rely heavily on exporting manufactured goods, particularly clothing and apparel, amid global demand and supply-side shocks. Clothing and apparel exports have been key drivers of formal employment, wage growth and poverty reduction in a few countries, with the share of working poor falling from about 45 per cent to 15 per cent of the workforce in these LDCs during the past two decades. A prolonged global slump will likely reverse the gains in poverty reduction and undermine structural transformation of these economies. While it is highly unlikely that these LDCs will face a debt crisis—given their low levels of external debt—the likelihood of a balance of payments crisis looms large. Additional liquidity and credit from multilateral sources will remain critical not only to avoid a balance of payments crisis but also to prevent increases in poverty and the reversal of years of development gains.
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The Impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples
Authors: United Nations and Rosemary LanePublication Date: May 2020More LessIndigenous peoples in many regions have a long history of devastation from epidemics brought by colonizers, from the arrival of the first Europeans in the Americas who brought smallpox and influenza to a measles outbreak among the Yanonami of Brazil and Southern Venezuela in the 1950s/60s that nearly decimated the tribe (Pringle, 2015). COVID-19 (coronavirus) presents a new threat to the health and survival of indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples in nearly all countries fall into the most “vulnerable” health category. They have significantly higher rates of communicable and non-communicable diseases than their non-indigenous counterparts, high mortality rates and lower life expectancies. Contributing factors that increase the potential for high mortality rates caused by COVID-19 in indigenous communities include mal – and under-nutrition, poor access to sanitation, lack of clean water, and inadequate medical services. Additionally, indigenous peoples often experience widespread stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings such as stereotyping and a lack of quality in the care provided, thus compromising standards of care and discouraging them from accessing health care, if and when available.
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Leaving no one Behind: The COVID-19 Crisis Through the Disability and Gender Lens
Authors: United Nations, Akiko Ito, Evelyn Wonosaputra and Masumi OnoPublication Date: May 2020More LessThis policy brief highlights the impact of COVID-19 (coronavirus) on women and girls with disabilities and provides policy guidance for governments and other stakeholders to adopt inclusive and accessible measures to not only mitigate the adverse impacts of the crisis but build resilient societies.
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COVID-19 and Older Persons: A Defining Moment for an Informed, Inclusive and Targeted Response
Authors: United Nations, Julia Ferre and Amal Abou RafehPublication Date: May 2020More LessOlder persons and those with underlying medical conditions are at a higher risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19 (coronavirus). Multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination experienced by older persons are exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic and aggravate their vulnerabilities. Triage protocols and policies that ensure medical decisions should be based on clinical assessment, medical need, ethical criteria and on the best available scientific evidence.
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Protecting and Mobilizing Youth in COVID-19 Responses
Author: United NationsPublication Date: May 2020More LessThe COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has resulted in severe economic and social impacts around the world. Young people are particularly vulnerable to the disruptions the pandemic has caused, and many are now at risk of being left behind in education, economic opportunities, and health and well-being during a crucial stage of their life development. Young people are more likely to be unemployed or to be in precarious job contracts and working arrangements, and thus, lack adequate social protection. At the same time, young people are responding to the crisis through public health promotion, volunteering and innovation. Young people will form a key element in an inclusive recovery and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during this Decade of Action. However, the response and recovery must be done in a way that protects the human rights of all youth.
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COVID-19 and the Least Developed Countries
Authors: United Nations, Matthias Bruckner and Roland MollerusPublication Date: May 2020More LessCovid-19 (coronavirus) threatens to have devastating consequences in least developed countries (LDCs). Health systems may be unable to cope with a precipitous increase in infections, and these countries lack the resources to cope with the socioeconomic consequences of lockdowns around the world. Unless bold policy actions are taken by the international community, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the 2030 deadline will likely slip out of reach.
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