The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) warned that only 22 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda in the region – they are fulfilled or on a track record of being met, while more than three quarters of the goals are beyond a trajectory of achievement.
“We observe with great concern multiple difficulties in each country, and in the world economy, in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” said ECLAC Secretary General José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, at the opening of the seventh meeting of the Forum of Latin American and Caribbean Countries on Sustainable Development at the headquarters of the agency in Santiago de Chile, which will run until April 18.
Salazar-Xirinachs pointed out, however, that there is a commitment from all present to seek solutions and alternatives to accelerate the passage.
The United Nations official stressed that efforts are being made to promote transitions that will boost processes to meet the targets by 2030.
We’re only six years from 2030. The target year for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and progress towards achieving the goals has not maintained the same speed as the relentless pace of the passing of the days on the calendar, Salazar-Xirinachs lamented.
On the contrary, he continued, “We observe a strong misalignment in the monitoring indicators between the trajectories necessary to meet and those observed. This highlights the urgency of speeding up the pace.
The report submitted by ECLAC Latin America and the Caribbean in the face of the challenge of accelerating the pace towards the implementation of Agenda 30. Transitions to sustainability – it addresses in detail the five SDGs that will be analyzed in depth at the United Nations High-level Political Forum next July in New York: End of Poverty (ODS 1); zero hunger (ODS 2); climate action (SDG 13); peace, justice and strong institutions (SDGs 16); and Partnerships to Achieve Goals (SDGs 17).
He said that there are lags in reducing the poverty for income – while zero hunger there are progress in reducing malnutrition, but an increase in malnutrition.
However, he stressed that for climate action there are notorious advances in mitigation commitments, but still insufficient, because it is estimated that it is estimated that these efforts are required to implement the commitments of the Paris Agreement for the region.
In turn, he regretted that the impacts and costs of natural disasters had increased in the region and called for more investment in disaster risk and adaptation management.
On peace, justice and strong institutions, he warned that high levels of violence and restricted access to justice prevail in the region.
For her part, the vice president of the Forum of Latin American and Caribbean Countries on Sustainable Development, Laura Fernández Delgado, who is also Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy of Costa Rica, said that, from the first session, in Mexico in 2017, until now the region has made “sweet progress.”
However, it is very clear that we all still have many challenges and the obligation to redouble efforts to move faster,” he said.
He explained that 46 percent of the 2030 Agenda targets in the region are progressed in a favorable direction, but not at the speed necessary to meet them and the remaining 32 percent would not be met; only 22 percent cited were met or on track to be met.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, published on Tuesday on her social network account X that the region has been fundamental to renewing commitments and intensifying actions in the 2030 Agenda.
With determination, concrete actions and with hope as engines we can achieve sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The event cited the six key transitions proposed by the United Nations Group on Sustainable Development, which can have catalytic and multiplier effects on all SDGs and a determining impact on achieving them.
These consider food systems; access to energy and affordability; digital connectivity; education; employment and social protection; and climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution.
The seventh meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Country Forum on Sustainable Development includes a number of sessions where participants will be able to discuss the urgency of strengthening the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crisis.
This article has been translated from the original which first appeared in El Pais