The number two of the UN warns that Latin America is not achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Despite this, Amina Mohamed assures that there is hope of achieving them as long as five priorities are acted on, ranging from the recovery from the pandemic to the acceleration of investments to curb climate change.

The UN deputy secretary-general was clear on Monday in her warning: “We are not on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

However, Amina Mohammed pointed out that there is hope, as long as action is taken on priorities to accelerate the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda.

The deputy secretary’s statements were made at the fifth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, which is convened annually by the UN Economic Commission for the region and which takes place in Costa Rica, between March 7 and 9.

The intergovernmental meeting was led by Carlos Alvarado, president of Costa Rica, the pro tempore presidency of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations; and Alicia Bárcena, executive secretary of the aforementioned Commission.

Mohemmed stressed that Latin America has great structural challenges, such as extreme inequalities, low productivity, high levels of indebtedness, unemployment and high informality, which have deepened with serious consequences for women, youth and the most vulnerable populations of the continent, including indigenous people, Afro-descendants, migrants and refugees. This coupled with the strong impacts of climate change in the region.

But there is hope

“It is still possible to meet the Sustainable Development Goals contained in the 2030 Agenda, but we need to accelerate progress and get back on track,” he said.

To achieve this, he cited 5 priorities for action that the region must promote:
1. Increase resilience against the pandemic
2. Increase and accelerate investments in protecting people and ecosystems on the front lines of the climate crisis
3. Empowering just transitions in digital connectivity, energy and food systems
4. Reinventing the future of education after recovering from the huge learning losses of the pandemic
5. Accelerating gender equality and economic transformation
For her part, Alicia Bárcena pointed out that it is essential to change the style of development in the region and the world, especially consumption and production practices.

To do this, he suggests returning to the course “summoning the people”. That is, it is necessary to bring the 2030 Agenda to the people and that each local community is involved in the action.

For his part, the president of Costa Rica said that the region and the world must break the paradigm that the 2030 Agenda is optional. “It is necessary for inclusive development and for us to conserve the planet on which we live.”

And that is achieved, he said, by ceasing to depend on fossil fuels.

More than a thousand participants in the Forum

More than 1200 people participate in this regional forum on Sustainable Development Goals, including high authorities and representatives of governments, the United Nations System, international institutions, the private sector, academia and civil society, who have gathered to review the progress and challenges of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the region.
The Regional Forum seeks to provide useful peer-to-peer learning opportunities through voluntary examinations, the exchange of good practices, and the discussion of common goals. Its conclusions are forwarded directly to the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, a global follow-up mechanism to the 2030 Agenda that meets every July in New York.

In the framework of the meeting, Bárcena also presented the fifth report on the progress and regional challenges of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, where he stressed that in a third of the goals of the Development Goals in the region have regressed.

The document further notes that the achievement of the Goals will not be achieved with more of the same; rather, progress must be made towards a new inclusive and sustainable economic and social system.

In this document, specific proposals are presented in four areas in which further work should be done:

• strengthening multilateralism, particularly in the area of financing for development
• improving the implementation of productive, social and environmental policies at national and regional levels
• increasing the resilience of institutions
• overcoming conflicts through agreements and pacts
The fifth meeting of the Forum also holds five thematic tables that will address topics such as:
• development in transition and the urgency of moving towards renewed international cooperation for development
• statistical, quantitative and territorial monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals
• natural disasters and the asymmetry of climate change in the Caribbean
• the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for sustainable recovery
• education and gender equality as a central human right for the 2030 Agenda

Source: UN News