Keeping the goals in sight for a sustainable recovery

Assessing The Sustainable Development Goals in the light of the COVID pandemic, Viveka Palm from Eurostat and Mayor of Braga Ricardo Rio told the Brussels Economic Forum that the EU should focus on UN targets as it seeks to rebuild economies.

Viveka Palm, director at EU data department Eurostat, said the SDGs could be used when trying to look at the economy “in a broader sense,” for instance how COVID has affected the environment. “At Eurostat we have been engaged in trying to find relevant measures for a long time.”

The 17 UN SDGs are a set of goals countries should aim to reach by 2030 in order to promote "a better and more sustainable future" around the world, according to the UN General Assembly. SDGs include goals to abolish poverty and hunger, as well as to promote "affordable and clean energy" and climate action, education, gender equality and health. They replaced the Millennium Development Goals, which ended in 2015.
Palm said that the latest Eurostat analysis showed there had been “some progress on reducing poverty and social exclusion” in line with the SDGs across Europe, as well as on “improving health situation.” Most progress had however been made towards better personal security, she said.

She added that Eurostat analysis divides progress towards the SDGs by the type of industry, as well as by country. “We can clearly see that different industries have different resource and energy use, to show where we are and where we should be heading,” Palm explained.

“It’s also possible to see where some countries have taken measures, for instance to decrease the use of fossil fuels for heating homes,” she added. “This can then really be used to inform policies.”
But she cautioned that “different countries are coming from very different starting points.”

Ricardo Rio, Mayor of the Portuguese city of Braga, said the SDGs were vital in his role. “They are never out-dated,” he said. “We don’t need new mottos, new frameworks. It’s all there.”

He estimated that “65% of SDGs require regions and cities to implement them. I am fully committed to implementing them.”

Most initiatives needed to speed up implementation of the SDGs, for instance the introduction of low emission bus fleets, can only be taken at a local level, Rio explained. “We need support from governments and the EU, but the policies are developed at local level.”

As well as linking the goals with “macro” level economic initiatives, Rio said that placing the SDGs in the context of EU climate and environment policies could help communicate their importance to the “micro” issues of citizens’ daily lives. Both speakers acknowledged that SDGs are not widely understood by voters.

“To make this connection with citizens it is very important to raise awareness, and also accountability,” Rio said. This means that “we can’t only focus on macro and economic themes,” he explained. “The social level is also crucial.”

“The crucial element is that we can demonstrate that meeting SDGs is contributing to citizens’ quality of life,” the mayor said.

Moving on from the Coronavirus pandemic, he said it would be “important to strengthen the capacity building of cities and regions” to meet SDGs. The UN goals are “the perfect tool to ensure a sustainable recovery,” Rio said.

He said it was therefore “disappointing” to see that national recovery plans, submitted by member states to the European Commission showing how they would use EU funds to respond to the pandemic, “only partially cover SDGs.”

“I seek to sound the alarm on the risk of not implementing SDGs,” said the mayor, who is also drafting a report for the EU Committee of the Regions on delivering the SDGs by 2030. “We are still firm believers that the SDGs provide sustainable recovery.”

“There should be a more coherent and integrated approach to link EU policies and SDGs,” Rio said. “This is not just about the Green Deal. It’s about economic growth.”

The pandemic was “a huge slowdown” in fulfilment of the goals,” Rio said. The challenge will now be bringing them back to the top of the agenda.