New report from UN Economic Commission for Europe measures progress on global goals

UN News/Elizabeth Scaffidi

People shop in Azerbaijan's Sederek Market.

    

17 March 2020

SDGs

As all eyes, hearts and minds focus on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) garnered attention on Tuesday when a new UN report revealed that only ten countries in the European region have levels of air pollution below the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended limit. 

The UN Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) first regional report on SDG progress has singled out Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Estonia, United States, Norway, Portugal, Ireland and Spain as meeting the WHO standards, noting that others need to step up.  

UNECE@UNECE

: First @UNECE regional report on #SDGs uses #statistics on 49 indicators across all 17 #GlobalGoals to highlight progress, lags & data gaps

Read the report, issued ahead of #RFSD2020 to support sharpened efforts for the #DecadeOfAction

https://www.unece.org/info/media/presscurrent-press-h/statistics/2020/first-unece-regional-report-on-sdgs-shows-some-good-progress-and-many-gaps/doc.html …#2030Agenda

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These and other findings aim to sharpen efforts to achieve the SDGs by describing levels and trends of selected indicators and highlighting challenges, which will be used to inform the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development, which will be held Thursday online.  

Measuring change for most of the 49 indicators across the 17 SDGs, the report found that UNECE countries are mostly fulfilling targets or making good progress, including on eradicating extreme poverty, enhancing social protections and achieving low levels of maternal, infant and child mortality. 

And the report highlights actions toward preserving the planet, such as expanding forest cover, providing safely managed sanitation, lowering the energy intensity of the economy and complying with environmental agreements. 

But the findings are not all favourable, including in the areas of air pollution, marine protection, development assistance and disaster-risk reduction strategies. 

Key trends  

Health indicators show that in most countries, the proportion of underweight children below age five is low while overweight rates are much higher – a pattern especially pronounced in some Western Balkan countries.  

“There are ten times more overweight children than underweight children in Albania, eight times more in Montenegro and around seven times more in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in North Macedonia”, according to UNECE. 

Turning to gender equality, women in most countries spend considerably more time in domestic and care work than men, with the largest differences observed in Albania, where women spend 5.2 hours and men 0.8 hours per day. Nordic countries had the smallest gap.  

Sweden, Finland, Spain and Norway each have more than 40 per cent women among members of parliament, and in 36 countries across the region the share of women parliamentarians increased between 2015 and 2019.  

However, only Belarus, France, Iceland and Sweden have near gender parity among local government representatives. 

Regarding climate, almost all countries observed an improvement in CO2 emissions between 2011 and 2016, with the largest drop in Uzbekistan, followed by Turkmenistan and Ukraine.  

And over the past two decades, forest cover has been expanding in the region – a marked contrast with the situation worldwide, in which forest areas have decreased between 2000 and 2015. 

At the same time, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Israel have a level of water stress above 100 per cent as each extracts more water than is renewed in the same period. 

Development and economy 

Of the 25 countries with available data, only Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom meet the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income allocated to official development assistance. 

And while Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany and Ireland have unemployment benefits reaching or exceeding 95 per cent of the population, that same coverage is below two per cent in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. 

Although UNECE countries all have retirement pension provisions, the report showed that in 2016 about half covered 100 per cent of their populations, with the lowest coverage found in Montenegro (53 per cent) followed by Croatia (57 per cent).  

The UNECE region covers more than 47 million square kilometres. And has a membership of 56 States. For more details, click here. 

 Çourtesy;UM Mews

Globally, youth are the largest poverty-stricken group, says new UN report

UNDP/S. Omer Sadaat

Children in Shade Bara village, Herat province, Afghanistan.

    

20 September 2018

Economic Development

Half of all people living in poverty are younger than 18 years old, according to estimates from a new report released on Thursday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and partners.

The new figures in the 2018 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) show that in 104 primarily low- and middle-income countries, 662 million children are considered poor according to multiple different indicators. In 35 of these countries. Children account for at least 50 per cent of the total.

The 2018 MPI, produced by UNDP and the University of Oxford’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative, provides the most comprehensive view of the many ways in which 1.3 billion people worldwide experience poverty in their daily lives.

The MPI looks beyond income to understand how people experience poverty in multiple and simultaneous ways across the three key dimensions of health, education and living standards; taking in factors such as a lack of clean water, sanitation, adequate nutrition or primary education.

Although the level of poverty – particularly in children – is staggering, so is the progress that can be made in tackling it - UNDP chief, Achim Steiner

According to the index, those who are deprived in at least one-third of the MPI’s components are defined as “multidimensionally poor”. The 2018 figures, which are closely aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), cover almost three-quarters of the world’s population.

Some 1.3 billion people live in multidimensional poverty, which is almost a quarter of the population of the 104 countries used to calculate the 2018 MPI. Of these, 46 per cent are thought to be living in severe poverty.

“The Multidimensional Poverty Index gives insights that are vital for understanding the many ways in which people experience poverty, and it provides a new perspective on the scale and nature of global poverty while reminding us that eliminating it in all its forms is far from impossible,” said UNDP chief Achim Steiner.

Progress is possible on poverty, argues UNDP chief

 While the latest figures paint a stark picture of just how many are still left behind, they also demonstrate that progress can happen quickly with the right approach.

 “Although the level of poverty – particularly in children – is staggering, so is the progress that can be made in tackling it,” he added, pointing out that in India alone some 271 million have escaped multidimensional poverty “in just ten years.” 

The poverty rate there has nearly halved, falling from 55 per cent to 28 per cent over the ten-year period.

 Although similar comparisons over time have not yet been calculated for other countries, the latest information from UNDP’s Human Development Index, which was released last week, shows significant development progress in all regions, including many Sub-Saharan African countries.

Between 2006 and 2017, the life expectancy increased over seven years in Sub-Saharan Africa and by almost four in South Asia. Moreover, enrollment rates in primary education are up to 100 per cent.

The data shows that in addition to the 1.3 billion classified as poor, another 879 million risk slipping further into multidimensional poverty due to conflict, sickness, drought, unemployment and other setbacks.

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