The COVID-19 pandemic hit countries’ development agendas hard. The ensuing recession has pushed millions into extreme poverty and has shrunk government resources available for spending on achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This Staff Discussion Note assesses the current state of play on funding SDGs in five key development areas: education, health, roads, electricity, and water and sanitation, using a newly developed dynamic macroeconomic framework.

The setbacks caused by COVID-19 (coronavirus) need not be permanent, and it is possible to regain the momentum and move ahead towards the SDGs. It is even possible to convert the COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity for recovering better, by directing much of the resources earmarked for recovery toward investment in promoting the SDGs. While the impact of COVID-19 for many prosperity-related SDGs was negative, its impact for many planet-related SDGs has been positive: greenhouse gas emissions declined; air and water quality improved; and nature's regeneration was witnessed in many areas. These opposite impacts revealed that current ways of achieving prosperity conflict with the health of the planet.

Measuring Sustainable Development Goals Performance provides a quantitative and analytical framework for evaluating social, economic, and environmental policies aiming at the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). Continuing their earlier work on multidimensional analysis, the authors demonstrate how nations can be ranked in terms of their performance in meeting a given set of SDGs, providing numerical calculation of SDGs deficit. Their calculations show that even before the arrival of the COVID-19 virus, there existed in several large Western nations undetected pockets of SDG deficits, such as in the care for the elderly, personal safety, and hygiene. Extending the calculations to cover COVID-19 data for 2020, it turns out that the same deficit nations also suffered excess death rates caused by the virus.This book offers a balanced and holistic paradigm for evaluating progress of the SDGs, assisting the convergence of national and international efforts toward economic development, social progress, and environmental protection. - 2023 PROSE Awards - Winner: Category: Single and Multivolume Reference and Textbooks in Social Sciences: Association of American Publishers - Includes novel tools, procedures, diagnostics, and metrics for evaluating the entire spectrum of SDGs in a wide variety of settings - Ranks nations according to their social and economic performance, based on each nation's unique resource and output indicators - Examines international efforts toward shaping a new Social Contract between global partners - Delivers a new Calculus of Consent: Logical foundation for forging Geneva Consensus for Sustainable Development

Contains insights on current issues in research on sustainable development, featuring the SDG Index and Dashboards.

This book gathers and disseminates opinions, viewpoints, studies, forecasts, and practical projects which illustrate the various pathways sustainability research and practice may follow in the future, as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and prepares itself to the possibilities of having to cope with similar crisis, a product of the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) https://www.haw-hamburg.de/en/ftz-nk/programmes/iusdrp.html and the European School of Sustainability Science and Research (ESSSR) https://esssr.eu/. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe human suffering, and to substantial damages to economies around the globe, affecting both rich countries and developing ones. The aftermath of the epidemic is also expected to be felt for sometime. This will also include a wide range of impacts in the ways sustainable development is perceived, and how the principles of sustainability are practised. There is now a pressing need to generate new literature on the connections between COVID-19 and sustainability. This is so for two main reasons. Firstly, the world crisis triggered by COVID-19 has severely damaged the world economy, worsening poverty, causing hardships, and endangering livelihoods. Together, these impacts may negatively influence the implementation of sustainable development as a whole, and of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in particular. These potential and expected impacts need to be better understood and quantified, hence providing a support basis for future recovery efforts. Secondly, the shutdown caused by COVID-19 has also been having a severe impact on teaching and research, especially –but not only – on matters related to sustainability. This may also open new opportunities (e.g. less travel, more Internet-based learning), which should be explored further, especially in the case of future pandemics, a scenario which cannot be excluded. The book meets these perceived needs.

This publication provides an overview of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) bonds as a mechanism to help mobilize the financing required to achieve the SDGs in developing Asia. The importance of development that provides for equitable economic growth and the sustainable use of natural resources has become increasingly apparent during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. COVID-19 has emphasized the need for a renewed focus on achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition to its analysis of the current SDG bond market in the region, the publication proposes a new type of SDG bond that could contribute to accelerating sustainable development in the region.

This book describes the political, social, and economic connections between gender and the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors offer innovative ideas for recovery that will build a more prosperous, healthy, equitable, and sustainable future for African women and girls, targets identified under Goal 5 (Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment) of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals slated to be achieved by 2030. Within this context, authors identify issues related to the protection of women and girls from poverty, hunger, and gender-based violence; improved healthcare and healthcare workforce experiences; girl-child education; financial inclusion; and entrepreneurship opportunities for women in fintech, tourism, and information, communication and technology (ICT). The book concludes with a discussion of economic empowerment for women that focuses on normalising the ‘un-normal’ outcome of the pandemic. The book will be of value to policymakers, non-profit organisations, practitioners, and scholars who understand the importance of gender equality and women empowerment in the African continent.