The various international crises have slowed progress in sustainable development and, for the second consecutive year, no progress has been made towards achieving the goals set in this field by the UN in the 2030 Global Agenda .
This follows from the XVII Report on Sustainable Development for 2022, presented this Thursday by the German Bertelsmann Foundation.
Military conflicts, in addition to their humanitarian cost, have repercussions on food security around the world – as the crisis in Ukraine is currently showing – and also hinder the possibility of thinking long term.
“Diplomacy, peace and cooperation are key conditions for achieving the goals set for 2030,” says the report.
The sustainable development ladder is headed by Finland followed by the other Nordic countries, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
The top ten countries on the list are European, but even those countries face major challenges in the field of sustainability.
Since the approval of the sustainability goals by the UN in 2015, the countries of East and South Asia have made the most progress, led by Bangladesh and Cambodia.
Venezuela, on the other hand, is the country that has regressed the most since then, according to the report.
On the other hand, the report maintains that a global plan for financing sustainable development is something “urgent”. Specifically, it calls for an investment agenda in infrastructure – above all in renewable energy and digitization – as well as in health and education.
One obstacle to this is that the poorest half of the world does not have access to capital in acceptable conditions, and it is precisely the poorest countries that have been hardest hit by international crises.
One threat is that support for sustainable development declines due to the need to balance budgets in European countries, increased military spending and changing strategic priorities.
All this can lead to a reduction in funds to support sustainable development in the poorest countries.
In this context, the report proposes a five-point plan for the financing of sustainable development in which the G20 countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral institutions must play a key role.
Efforts to support the achievement of sustainable development goals are divergent. Within the G20, the US, Russia and Brazil are, according to the report, those that have shown the least commitment to them.
The Nordic countries, on the other hand, show great commitment, as do Germany, Argentina, Japan and Mexico.
For some countries, such as Benin and Nigeria, which are far behind in the ranking, the report expressly recognizes a clear political effort.
In the case of Benin, it stands out that, like Mexico, it has issued bonds to finance sustainable development.