COVID-19 has been a tragedy, killing more than half a million people and bringing the economy and life to a standstill in many parts of the world.It is directly impacting life and health, with more than ten million confirmed cases.The various containment measures are affecting hundreds of millions of people and their livelihoods.The aggregate effect at the national and global levels will persist for a long time.

COVID-19 has slowed economic growth, increased unemployment, and raised poverty and hunger.The global output is estimated to shrink by 5.2 per cent in 2020, with a downside estimate of about 8 per cent contraction should the lockdowns continue into the second half of the year. The decline in world gross product could lead to an additional 25 million people unemployed worldwide. The global poverty headcount is estimated to increase by as much as 100 million people, assuming the income distribution does not change. Hunger will also increase, with the number of people facing acute food insecurity doubling to about 265 million by the end of 2020.These deprivations are likely to hit children, women, and the elderly, as well as least developed countries (LDCs) and other vulnerable developing countries, harder.

While COVID-19 has been damaging for many of the people and prosperity-related SDGs, it has had some positive impact on planet-related SDGs.For example, annual CO2 emissions for 2020 are projected to be 4–7 per cent lower than last year.Air and water became cleaner; and in many places, a resurgence of nature has been observed.

The above divergent outcomes of COVID-19 reveal once more that the current ways of achieving prosperity are a threat to the health of the planet.In fact, the zoonotic nature of COVID-19 and other recent epidemics — such as SARS, MERS, Ebola, and the bird flu — show the importance of protecting the planet and sharing it equitably with other animal and plant species.

The impact of COVID-19 deepens further the concern over whether the SDGs can be achieved by 2030.The answer depends to a large extent on how human societies themselves respond to the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath.To illustrate the above, the current SDO presents three pathways, namely the pre-COVID-19 benchmark and the post-COVID-19 pessimistic and optimistic scenarios.

Baseline and alternative scenarios of SDG achievement

The pre-COVID-19 benchmark scenario was already laid out in the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) (Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the Secretary General, 2019).It classified SDG targets into, broadly, three groups (Figure O.1).The first comprises the SDG targets that are on track.The second comprises those which are considered within reach with extra efforts.The third comprises the SDGs where implementation is moving in the opposite direction.While many of the people and prosperity-related SDGs belong to the second group, with a few being in the first, all the planet-related SDGs fall into the third.

Analyses of COVID-19 experiences show that many countries took various emergency measures to strengthen their healthcare, social protection, and overall governance systems to deal with the crisis. The post-COVID-19 scenario of a country therefore also depends on whether it sustains these emergency positive changes and builds on them, rather than letting them wither away and thus falling back to the pre-COVID-19 state.

Overall, the kind of post-COVID-19 scenario that takes hold of a country depends on whether it can: (i) minimize the damage caused by COVID-19; (ii) recover quickly from the damages; (iii) hold on and build further on the positive changes introduced to its healthcare, social protection, and governance systems during the pandemic; (iv) sustain and bolster the positive gains that were made regarding the planet-related SDGs during the COVID-19 crisis; and (v) reenergize its general effort toward sustainable development.Should countries succeed at the above efforts, they will enter the optimistic scenario.Otherwise, the pessimistic scenario will prevail, driving society further away from attaining sustainable development.

Success with the SDGs is tied to success dealing with COVID-19

The extent to which a country suffers from the pandemic and the rapidity with which it emerges from those damages depend on its success in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis itself.Therefore, the likelihood of the post-COVID-19 pessimistic and optimistic scenarios at the global level depends on the distribution of countries in terms of their success in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis.

The COVID-19 experience shows that countries that had made more progress in achieving the SDGs were able to better deal with the COVID-19 crisis.For example, countries that had achieved access to clean water (SDG 6); reduced number of people living in slums (SDG 11); and decreased pre-existing health conditions such as non-communicable diseases (SDG 3) had more success in mitigating the COVID-19 risk.Similarly, past progress in smartphone and internet penetration (SDG 9) helped ensure greater communication between the public and the authorities, helping containment measures to be more successful.Of all the determinants of COVID-19 performance, the most important proved to be the healthcare system (SDG 3), social protection system (SDG 1 and 8), and the overall governance system (SDG 16).Unique country-specific factors did play an important role in the COVID-19 performance.However, their role was mediated through their impact on the healthcare, social protection, and overall governance systems.

Building on the economic responses to COVID-19

Countries across the world have taken up recovery measures, amounting to about 10 per cent of GDP, but the efforts have been uneven.Proper spending of these resources not only can facilitate recovery but also help build back better, ensuring that post-COVID-19 economic growth and employment expansion are more oriented toward sustainable development.

To support employment and income, many governments have rapidly employed monetary policies aimed at inserting liquidity in the financial system.However, in the absence of complementary measures, much of this additional liquidity may end up in precautionary balances and not have the desired effects.Targeted fiscal measures that boost immediate consumption spending are therefore necessary and more effective.Facing constraining fiscal space, many developing countries will require additional external assistance, including debt relief, to carry out such policies and tide over the crisis.

Going forward, putting in place social protection measures that serve as automatic stabilizers will help to avoid sharp economic downturns.Policymakers must also prepare themselves to better contain possible future waves of COVID-19 and mitigate their adverse effects, putting countries on firmer footings in terms of achieving sustainable development after the pandemic.In the face of weak GDP growth rates, a more equitable distribution of income will be necessary to ensure progress toward the SDGs concerning poverty, hunger, and other material deprivation.Adoption of these policies can help a country avoid the pessimistic scenario and be ensconced in the optimistic scenario.

Strengthening healthcare and social protection

One of the important lessons of the COVID-19 experience is that even low-income countries cannot leave the establishment of robust universal healthcare and social protection systems as goals to be achieved in the distant future.Instead, developing these systems needs to be considered as an urgent current task and should ideally build upon the emergency measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis to overcome the weaknesses of these systems.Countries can then take additional policy measures in the short-, medium-, and long-run to move forward to building robust healthcare and social protection systems with universal access.

In many developed countries, healthcare and social protection were first employment-driven and only later acquired a more universal character.This gradual progression may not be appropriate for many developing countries, where vast sections of the population are either self-employed or work in the informal sector.Meanwhile, transfer of the bulk of the population of these countries to employment in the formal sector will require a long time and is uncertain because of the new technologies that are changing the nature of work away from being formal and permanent.Under these circumstances, many developing countries may need to accomplish an institutional leapfrogging from very little to universal healthcare and social protection (including Universal Basic Income).Some examples show that appropriate policies and bold initiatives can allow committed developing countries to carry out such leapfrogging.

The policies that may help countries get on the trajectory of the optimistic scenario regarding the health goals include: (i) increasing public spending on the health sector; (ii) emphasizing primary and preventive healthcare; (iii) ensuring hygienic housing and living conditions for all (instead of passively witnessing large numbers of rural migrants ending up in urban slums); (iv) shock-proofing of the healthcare system against future epidemics and pandemics; and (v) making more use of technologies and telemedicine to ensure affordable healthcare for all, including those living in remote and inaccessible areas.

Regarding social protection, a three-pronged strategy can enable a country to follow the COVID-19 optimistic scenario.This strategy includes: (i) accelerating efforts to achieve universal, nationally appropriate social protection floors; (ii) shock-proofing of social protection systems; and (iii) adapting social protection systems to the new digital economy.

Sustainable recovery and protecting the planet

One of the priorities of the post-COVID-19 period must be to maintain the downward trend in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that has been observed during the pandemic and make it sustainable and robust, so that the Paris climate change targets are achieved.A significant part of the resources earmarked for COVID-19 recovery can be directed to investments needed to reduce GHG emissions.The current low fuel prices may be used to introduce carbon taxes to both discourage GHG emissions and generate more revenues to enable carbon reduction.Given that many of the GHG mitigation activities are labor-intensive, activities along these lines will also help to generate employment.

The concrete areas of investment for climate action include: (i) power generation using renewable energy sources; (ii) building smart grids; (iii) developing high capacity batteries; (iv) carbon capture and sequestration; (v) development of new clean fuels; (vi) production and use of power-saving appliances; and (vii) switching to electric vehicles based on clean power.Investments are also needed for adaptation purposes, particularly in developing low-lying countries that are hard hit by the effects of climate change.Policies that may facilitate climate action include: (i) direct public investment; (ii) subsidized financing of private investment; (iii) providing a guaranteed market for clean power; (iv) ensuring necessary cooperation among firms operating in the energy sector; (v) enabling cooperation between the energy industry and the related R&D organizations; and (vi) mobilization of the public.Phased out over the short-, medium-, and long-run, these policies can help a country to avoid the COVID-19 pessimistic scenario and proceed along the optimistic scenario and reach the climate action goals.

The zoonotic nature of COVID-19 and other recent epidemics have made it urgent to reduce human pressure on nature and thereby protect land, water, and biodiversity.Some positive indications observed during the COVID-19 crisis of relieving human pressure on nature need to be sustained, expanded, and made durable.This would require meeting the Aichi biodiversity targets, including target 11, which asks countries to preserve 17 per cent of their terrestrial area and 10 per cent of marine areas as protected from human interventions.So far, these targets remain unmet by most countries, and particularly regarding the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs).

One reason for the relentless increase of human pressure on nature is the incessant growth in the global volume of material consumption and production, so much that sustaining the current volume requires almost twice the biocapacity that the Earth can offer.In addition to the increase in volume, there has been a menacing shift in the composition of waste, with a dramatic increase in non-biodegradable plastics.While vast sections of the populations in the developing world still need to increase their material consumption level, urgent measures are necessary to reduce the impact on nature by encouraging efforts to (i) reduce, reuse and recycle (RRR); (ii) adopt circular economies; (iii) shift consumption toward digital products; and (iv) fundamentally reconfigure social institutions, facilitating delinking of economic growth from an increase in material consumption.

Better governance and stronger partnerships

Another important lesson of COVID-19 is that, with the investment in efficient governance systems, even countries at a relatively low-income level can effectively confront emergencies such as the one posed by the pandemic.Going forward, countries need to pay special attention to improving their governance by ensuring: (i) effective communication and

transparency; (ii) participation; (iii) stakeholder engagement; (iv) accountability and anti-corruption; (v) effective coordination across units of governments (horizontal integration); (vi) effective coordination across levels of governments; (vii) technical competency of the bureaucracy; and (viii) smart use of technology.

COVID-19 has shown that the world has now become so integrated that the public health of one country may easily affect the public health of other countries.Thus, for the world as a whole, the public healthcare system can only be as strong as it is in the weakest country.Consequently, building a robust public healthcare system in countries lacking one is not only the responsibility of the respective country but also that of the global community.Furthermore, dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects is the responsibility not only of national governments but also of other stakeholders.Going forward, a greater partnership is necessary among countries and all stakeholders within and across countries for confronting future public health crises such as COVID-19 and for achieving the SDGs.