Partnerships for the Goals

In the space of nine months, COVID-19 (coronavirus) has spread to more than 190 countries, with over 30 million cases reported. Over one million lives have been lost. The pandemic has laid bare long-ignored risks, including inadequate health systems, gaps in social protection and structural inequalities. It has also brought home the importance of basic public health, and strong health systems and emergency preparedness, as well as the resilience of a population in the face of a new virus or pandemic, lending ever greater urgency to the quest for universal health coverage (UHC). Health is a fundamental human right, and universal health coverage is a critical tool for achieving health for all. Universal health coverage is defined as a situation where all individuals and communities receive the health services they need without undue financial hardship. However, at least half of the world’s population still do not have full coverage of essential health services, and over 800 million people spend at least 10 per cent of their household budgets to pay for health. It will be important to remove as much as possible financial barriers to accessing health services. This is challenging during an economic recession, but COVID-19 has shown that effective epidemic control benefits the economy. It has also exposed the down sides of financing health coverage primarily through wage-based contributions. In the context of a global economic crisis where unemployment increases, and where entitlement to services is linked to such contributions, access to health services is reduced at the time people need it the most.

Without 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.

The 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.

Many commodity-dependent economies will likely face an economic crisis before they are hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike most developed economies, commodity exporters saddled with large budget deficits and high levels of government debt will find it extremely difficult to roll out large fiscal stimulus. These economies are in a significantly tighter fiscal position now than they were during the global financial crisis, making it harder for them to borrow externally. Multilateral and concessional debt are increasingly critical financing options for many of these economies. The United Nations system entities can steer, facilitate and coordinate access to multilateral financing to help these economies scale up pandemic preparedness, minimize the risk of an economic crisis, and accelerate their sustainable development.

As the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development enters its fifth year of implementation, it is opportune to ask how governance is understood and implemented around the world. In fact, one can go further to probe the extent to which governments are cognizant of the principles undergirding effective governance. This paper examines the ways in which governance has been operationalized by countries, major groups and other stakeholders since the first round of Voluntary National Reviews at the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) of 2016. It does this based on the qualitative overview of the Synthesis reports of Voluntary National Reviews (2016–2029), and the quantitative analysis of three SDG databases: Voluntary National Reviews, SDG Good Practices and the SDG Acceleration Actions. It starts with a literature review of the multidimensional concept of governance. The three databases are then scoped through a series of keywords associated with the SDG16 governance targets. It finds that although SDG 16 is catalytic to progress on all other SDGs, its governance dimension does not receive due focus. The article concludes with several action areas to mainstream the governance dimension of SDG16 in sustainable development.

The 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.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) play a vital role in promoting the health and safety of people and in keeping economies and societies working during the ongoing COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis. Digital government technologies either through information sharing or online services have kept governments and people connected during the outbreak. Digital technologies have also enabled governments to make rapid policy decisions based on real-time data and analytics, to enhance the capacities of local authorities for better coordination and to deploy evidence-based services to those who need them most. The efforts in developing digital government strategies after the COVID-19 crisis should focus on improving data protection and digital inclusion policies as well as on strengthening the policy and technical capabilities of public institutions. Even though public-private partnerships are essential for implementing innovative technologies, government leadership, strong institutions and effective public policies are crucial to tailor digital solutions to countries’ needs as well as prioritize security, equity and the protection of people’s rights. The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the importance of technology, but also the pivotal role of an effective, inclusive and accountable government. This policy brief addresses how digital government has played a central role as a key tool of communication and collaboration between policymakers and society during the COVID-19 pandemic. Policymakers need to further embrace the future of digital government, even when the crisis is over.