The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Report 2020 was primarily defined by the devastating initial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which halted and, in many cases, reversed years of modest global progress.
The report emphasized that even before the pandemic, progress was uneven and insufficient, but the subsequent health, economic, and social crisis created an unprecedented setback, particularly for the world’s most vulnerable people.
Short Summary of the 2020 SDG Report
The report concluded that the pandemic exposed and exacerbated existing inequalities, threatening to erase the gains made since the 2030 Agenda began.
| Area | Pre-COVID Status | COVID-19 Impact |
|---|---|---|
Poverty (Goal 1) | Progress was slowing, but extreme poverty was still declining. | An estimated 71 million people were expected to be pushed back into extreme poverty in 2020, marking the first rise in global poverty since 1998. |
Health (Goal 3) | Incidence of many communicable diseases was in decline. | Health systems were driven to the brink of collapse. Disruption to vaccination and essential health services had the potential to cause hundreds of thousands of additional under-5 and maternal deaths. |
Hunger (Goal 2) | Food insecurity was already on the rise. | Tens of millions were pushed back into hunger. Global food systems were disrupted, and the number of undernourished people was set to grow dramatically. |
Work & Economy (Goal 8) | Modest gains in employment were visible. | The livelihoods of half the global workforce (especially the 1.6 billion informal workers) were severely affected, with incomes estimated to have fallen by 60% in the first month of the crisis for this group. |
Education (Goal 4) | Share of children out of school was falling. | Over 1.6 billion students were out of school due to closures. Inequalities in access to technology meant remote learning was out of reach for the most vulnerable. |
Reference
Source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) / UN Statistics Division (UNSD).