UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) Policy Briefs

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed new demands on development cooperation in its various forms: finance, capacity support, policy change and multi-stakeholder partnerships. The ongoing challenge of the pandemic and its consequences has also shown the durability and adaptability of development cooperation.

Development strategies that focus solely on urban development and leave rural communities behind are not adequate to overcome the development challenges we face. The in-situ development of rural economies and societies must be a central objective of development if nations are to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda. A precondition for substantial rural transformation and growth is higher agricultural productivity and the subsequent reallocation of productive resources towards expanding the non-agricultural rural sector. A dynamic local rural economy can benefit from and complement urban growth, alleviate poverty, and reduce migratory pressures on growing cities. Country examples show that it is possible to accelerate in-situ development by investing in infrastructure, offering educational opportunities, expanding financial services, and speeding up the adoption of technologies in food and non-food producing sectors. These investments help create a virtuous circle of agricultural productivity and non-agricultural development.

This policy brief reviews trends and impacts of wildfires on sustainable development, in all its environmental, economic and social dimensions. It provides an analysis of the key drivers of wildfires and proposes measures to reduce the risk and impacts of future wildfires.

Global progress towards SDG 1 had already slowed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the world was not on track to achieve this goal by 2030. The prospect of achieving SDG 1 by 2030 has been further dimmed by the impact of COVID-19. The global extreme poverty rate (SDG target 1.1) is projected in a baseline scenario to decline to only 9.2 per cent by 2030. This would mean that as many as 785 million people could find themselves in extreme poverty by 2030, far from reaching SDG 1. Given this context, achieving SDG 1 by 2030, will require extraordinary efforts by countries, both individually and collectively. The scenario analysis presented in this policy brief shows that a decline in income inequality can be a potent driver of poverty reduction and if combined with robust economic growth, can produce highly positive, if not miraculous, results for the eradication of extreme poverty, by 2030.

Activities geared to strengthening the capacity of public servants to implement the 2030 Agenda have multiplied rapidly since 2015, with a multiplicity of national and international actors involved. Yet, available information does not easily allow for a consolidated picture of how ongoing efforts address gaps at the level of individual countries. Areas identified in the Agenda itself as needing capacity building, such as data, statistical systems, follow up and review, have received high attention, as have planning and SDG localization. The landscape of capacity building for SDG implementation appears fragmented. There likely is untapped potential for cross-fertilization of capacity building initiatives. Reporting on capacity-building activities for public servants has not been a consistently high priority of governments. Because of this, the degree of responsiveness of capacity-building activities to recipients’ and countries’ needs is hard to assess. Government-wide capacity-building gap assessments and strategies are rare. Little is known about the changes in learning outcomes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which can have longer-term impacts on capacity in the public service.

By putting stress on national socio-economic systems, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed new tensions and trade-offs among policy areas, and exacerbated already existing tensions. In many countries heavily affected by the pandemic, this has revealed problems of lack of policy integration and policy coherence, both within and across sectors as well as across levels of government. Integrated policy-making has been critical in responding effectively to the pandemic, and will be paramount in post-COVID recovery to realize the Sustainable Development Goals.

Digital transformation, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, is enabling new forms of work and new ways of organizing work. Yet, due to regulatory gaps, social protection gaps, and weak enforcement mechanisms, many workers in these new forms of work - especially in the platform economy - may be pushed into precarious employment. Labour regulations should be updated to balance flexibility with the safeguarding of labour standards, workers’ protection, and income security in the digital age. This requires a shift away from one-size fits-all solutions to tailor-made employment and social protection policies that consider the unique opportunities and challenges of different types of new forms of work, based on better data and careful examination of the impacts of digitally enabled forms of work on society and the economy. Social protection systems need to adapt to ensure no worker is left unprotected in a future world of work transformed by digital technology.

The legitimacy of public institutions is crucial for building peaceful and inclusive societies. While levels of trust in institutions vary significantly across countries, opinion surveys suggest that there has been a decline in trust in public institutions in recent decades. Economic insecurity—which the COVID-19 crisis threatens to exacerbate—and perceptions of poor or corrupt government performance undermine the social contract and are closely linked to declines in institutional trust. Rebuilding public trust in the light of the current crisis demands services that work for everyone and jobs that provide income security, as well as more inclusive institutions.

Countries that have succeeded in reducing both rural poverty and inequalities have invested in infrastructure and public services. They have promoted inclusive agricultural growth, access to land and social protection in rural areas, and paid special attention to the needs of the most vulnerable.

The strengthening of institutions and incentives such as water user associations and secure water and tenure rights, along with enhanced international cooperation, can spur greater application of circular approaches in agriculture.