New Research from Australia Finds that the SDGs are Vital for COVID-19 Recovery Strategies

This was originally posted on www.sdsntrends.org.

The global disruption caused by COVID-19 is unprecedented in our lifetime and is a serious global setback for sustainable development. Governments are taking extraordinary measures to respond to the crisis, including relying heavily on data surveillance systems and analytics, which have raised new issues around data governance. With efforts continuing to deal decisively with the virus, many of which will determine the shape of our economies and lives for years to come, we must also begin to think ahead and design recovery strategies that ensure long-term prosperity and build resilience to future shocks.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a set of targets that can serve as a blueprint to ‘ build back better’ after the pandemic. However, despite only 10 years remaining until the 2030 deadline, many countries still lack national targets and a clear understanding of their progress.

New researchconducted through Monash Sustainable Development Institute, an SDSN member, provides a data-driven assessment of the nexus between COVID-19 and the SDGs in Australia, and explores how the SDGs can be used to guide Australia’s post-COVID-19 recovery.

The research makes three important advancements:

• It proposes a set of 2030 SDG target values for Australia across a broad set of economic, social, and environmental priorities.
• It assesses Australia’s progress towards these targets over the past two decades and heading into the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting where the country was falling behind and where acceleration is needed.
• It evaluates the effects of COVID-19 on Australia’s capacity to achieve the SDGs by 2030, highlighting where it has been knocked off-track, where poor performance has worsened, and opportunities to capitalise upon.

The research showsthe pandemic has exacerbated some existing trends -- including higher levels of inequality, poverty, and psychological distress -- that were emerging before COVID-19. The lockdowns and counter measures have also resulted in an unprecedented drop in GDP and employment, which has particularly impacted women and lower-income households.

On the positive side, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have fallen, and Australia’s effective response to COVID-19has seen levels of trust in the government rise substantially since the start of the crisis.

The success of Australia’s response has demonstrated the value of data and evidence for improving decisions. This data-driven and evidence-based approach is also fundamental to the SDGs and will be critical for designing recovery strategies that deliver long-term sustainable development.

The establishment of targets for 2030 is also critical to provide clear signposts for where we want to go. Targets set the priorities and level of ambition, encourage a shift from short- to long-term thinking, provide investment certainty and mobilise people to collaborate to solve problems. They also enable a clearer picture of where we are on track or off track, and the scale and pace of change needed.

For more information on the results from our assessment, visit the online portaland read the report here, or read our short piecein The Conversation.