THE novel coronavirus is wreaking havoc across the world, disturbing lives and livelihoods. The pandemic is now affecting world economies as fast as it is taking lives. Sustainable development has halted. The world is now said to be in an economic depression similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Covid-19 has unearthed basic shortcomings in our system. It has revealed how poverty, bad health care, deficient education and a lack of partnerships have added to the crisis. This pandemic has conveyed to us the critical requirements for action to satisfy basic needs and save the planet. Global challenges need global solutions. This is what sustainable development goals (SDGs) are all about.

In 2015, eight millennium development goals (MDGs) were replaced by 17 SDGs focusing on five Ps — people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships — as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. Covid-19 has caught the world’s attention more considerably. The pandemic has clogged health care systems (SDG 3) in the developed economies, leave alone those of developing economies. Ongoing progress in the implementation of SDGs has been impaired owing to the pandemic that slowed the efforts for poverty elimination, zero hunger, quality education, decent work and economic growth.

We cannot afford to take resources away from SDGs despite Covid-19

Countries around the world are allocating billions of dollars in stimulus packages for people and businesses hit by the coronavirus. But as the curve gets flattened, the possible non-utilisation of huge funds set aside for sustainable development will represent a missed opportunity. The question, however, arises as to how governments can ensure the adequate utilisation of these packages aimed at ending poverty and hunger and improving health, education, water and sanitation, energy, innovation, climate action etc.

As the United Nations calls for increasing the urgent health response to contain Covid-19, the focus on people, SMEs, informal sector and susceptible segments is already at peril. It is high time the world responded collectively to save lives and restore the economy. Despite this pandemic, we cannot afford to reallocate resources away from SDGs.

Our pursuit to achieve the SDGs will be affected as the evidence of the impact of the crisis emerges. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reports that 1.6 billion people are in danger of losing their livelihoods. Unesco projects that around 1.25bn students are affected. The crisis becomes worse owing to the pandemic’s effects on achieving potable water and sanitation targets. One estimate is that Covid-19 will push 49 million people into extreme poverty in 2020.

The federal and provincial governments have come up with packages for industries and people affected by the pandemic. The same stimulus packages may be tied with sustainable development performance targets.

Given the gravity of the matter, the government should recognise inequity in society. It should leave no one behind while implementing these stimulus packages by targeting the potentially marginalised groups such as women, informal or daily-wagers, frontline workers, people in crowded and densely populated areas etc.

Oshani Perera, director of sustainable infrastructure at the International Institute of Sustainable Development, an independent think tank, suggests a few performance targets for businesses and individuals so that the post–Covid-19 recovery phase benefits the people and the planet alike. She suggests cash injections into airlines, shipping and cruise lines should be subjected to reduced carbon emission targets. She also recommends diverting health funds to health care services for lower income communities and the improved handling of medical waste.

Furthermore, she suggests lending by banks to green and sustainable businesses, linking infrastructure spending to sustainable design, energy efficiency, waste reduction and green technological innovation. Likewise, she recommends ensuring performance-related payments to farmers on the basis of clean water and increased biodiversity and prohibiting everyone from using stimulus money to buy bonds issued by fossil fuel firms.

Green investment is the term used for allocating capital for projects that are eco-friendly. Ben Cald­ecott, founding director of the Oxford Sustain­able Finance Programme, argues that two conditions must hold for a financial product or service to be green. The first condition is the activity the financial product or service is encouraging should be green and the activity it discourages should be brown.

In the second condition, the financial product or service must hold at least one position out of five to make a lucid and calculable distinction: reduce or increase the cost of capital or liquidity for green or brown products, facilitate risk management of environmentally related physical and transition risks, promote business adoption of sustainable practices and general change through spill-over effects.

The Social Progress Index (SPI), prepared by the Social Progress Imperative, a global non-profit organisation that records outcomes on SDGs, ran­ked Pakistan 125th among 149 countries for 2019. Early this year, the International Monetary Fund advised Pakistan to spend at least Rs6.2 trillion on SDGs over a decade to deliver on its global commitments.

More recently, the prime minister has decided to transfer SDGs Achievement Programme from the Cabinet Division to the Parliamentary Affairs Division for the effective inclusion of parliamentarians in the disbursement of funds for small development schemes. Let’s hope we perform better in 2020 and take ourselves a little bit higher on the SPI.

The writer is a banker.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 8th, 2020