Post-COVID-19 economic recovery needs to anchor in transformative SDGs

30 September 2020
Post-COVID-19 economic recovery needs to anchor in transformative SDGs
A food delivery worker rides a bike on an empty Yangon street on September 29, 2020 as Myanmar's biggest city goes into a strict lockdown following a surge of Covid-19 coronavirus cases. Photo: Ye Aung Thu/AFP

The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant setback for the world’s ambition to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), in particular for poor countries and population groups.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has rightly called this crisis the worst since World War II. The economic ramifications could rival those of the Great Depression in the early 1930s. At the same time, a recent report “Sustainable Development Report 2020” (SDR 2020) by Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a UN inspired initiative, led by Jeffery Sachs that tracks the SDGs Progress Index, points out that it could provide a turn-around if the recovery is anchored in the core transformative goals of the SDGs.

Sustainable Development Report 2020

In their recent report, this group of eminent global scholars point out that the long term consequences of the pandemic remain highly uncertain at this point and going back to development as usual may not be the solution for countries to fulfill the SDG goals. The global community has to address course corrections in the development path that is being followed in order to achieve the SDGs.

The crisis has shown profound weaknesses in the public health systems, including in many of the richest countries that were deemed to be well prepared for such a pandemic.

This think-tank analyses the policies and progress of UN and member countries through The SDG Index that tracks country performance on the 17 SDGs, as agreed by the international community in 2015 with equal weight to all 17 goals. The score signifies a country’s position between the worst (0) and the best or target (100) outcomes.

Myanmar SDG progress

Based on the data of the pre-COVID-19 period, the score for Myanmar is 64.6 and it stands at 104 rank among the total of 166 countries. SDI Index also identifies trends in respect to SDGs as to whether the country is on track or not. In that respect Myanmar presents a mixed result, with only one goal viz., responsible consumption and production having been achieved and eight goals are being in the category of having major challenges in the achievement.

Further, progress on four goals are identified to be having significant challenge and the remaining too face challenges in their achievement. This classification is just to make the case for renewed appeal and advocacy with the government to ensure an enabling environment in terms of policy and budgetary resources so that SDGs can be achieved with the support of public and private sectors.

It is to be noted that Myanmar’s private sector has a significant role in the SDGs and its Myanmar version, namely the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan (MSDP). If one were to look at trends, the positive news is that Myanmar is on track with respect to poverty reduction (SDG1), quality education (SDG4) and climate action (SDG13). Other SDG indicators related to reduction in hunger, health, water and sanitation, clean energy, decent

work and economic growth, industry innovation and infrastructure, sustainable cities and urban spaces and life under water appears to be making moderate progress.

One significant area of concern is a decline in the indicators that reflect partnerships for the goals. This is an area of concern at the global level as increasingly Post-COVID-19 response mechanisms seek far more closer global partnerships and cooperation in order to overcome the pandemic and also to resurrect the economic growth.

Global scenario for recovery

The SDR 2020 brings out certain critical observations vis a vis response of countries towards the COVID-19 pandemic and its recovery plans. While lauding the efforts of the countries it points out that “All countries need to strengthen the resilience of their health systems and prevention programs. At this moment, all countries remain highly vulnerable and in line with the SDG 3 (Good Health and Well- Being), all countries need to “Strengthen the capacity for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks.”

The COVID‑19 pandemic has shed considerable light on the vulnerability of health systems, notably in high-income countries that were thought best prepared to face epidemics.

Meanwhile, some countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, have so far been successful in containing COVID‑19 and minimizing the damage to their societies. In fact, among OECD economies, South Korea stands at the top in all parameters related to COVID-19 early response to contain the pandemic. So also are Australia and New Zealand. Similarly, Vietnam in the ASEAN region has shown the successful path towards containment. All these countries depended on intensive public health services, and good hygienic practices among the population in order to contain the spread of the infection.

According to the SDR 2020 report, the COVID-19 recovery plan for countries has to hinge on six transformative elements contained in the SDG goals. These are to be seen as moving towards a new normal. They are, one, education gender and inequality; two, good health and well being; three, energy decarbonization and sustainable industry; four, sustainable food, land, water and oceans; five, sustainable cities and urban communities; and finally the sixth, harnessing the digital revolution for sustainable development.

How do these transformations fan out in different countries? In order to ensure successful recovery, countries need to invest more in their education, health care resilience, modern communication technologies, long term direction for a clean and green economy, investing in food security, and urbanization challenges. Some of these are part of the short term and medium term measures that are announced by the Government of Myanmar as CERP. However it is time that with the support of development partners that the Myanmar government draws up a long term plan in line with the goals of SDGs. Further to this, inclusive and equitable development policies are also important as part of the COVID-19 economic recovery as rising inequalities are emerging as a significant negative fallout of the policies that governments pursued over the last two decades. The poor population in countries with high levels of inequality have faced the severe brunt of the pandemic both in economic and health terms compared to the better off sections.

Role of Governments

SDR 2020 points out that “In the short- and medium-term, the role of public health systems in disease prevention and surveillance will need to increase to prevent further waves of COVID‑19 and future health crises. Governments will play a key role in developing and distributing COVID‑19 treatments and vaccines on a global scale. As in the case of education, the crisis will likely accelerate the transformation towards digital healthcare and telemedicine to increase access to and efficiency of healthcare systems.”

It is important at this stage to focus on SDG 3 which is related to good health and well being. COVID-19 has brought forward the role of the public health system and the role of the government in addressing the health of its citizens. Markets have failed in this respect across the free market economies and governments had to intervene in a significant way. The pandemic has shown the limits of neoliberalism as an ideology, and shattered the myth of market superiority. In the face of a crisis the market systems collapsed. Even for markets to function in the health care sector, the reality is that over 40% of the world’s population has no health insurance or access to national health services. This brings to the fore the role of universal health care provision in order to protect the vulnerable population from such extraneous health shocks. And it is not costly for the governments if they have political will and get their priorities right. Myanmar needs to adhere to the lessons on the importance of investing in public health, water and sanitation and strengthening of the health care system.

Food security is another area that needs significant attention in the post-COVID-19 economic recovery. The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of food supply chains and the lockdown measures and travel restrictions have disrupted the movement of food across countries and cities. It has also affected the domestic trade in food in a significant way. The loss of formal and informal employment and self employment livelihoods have also affected the food security of large sections of workers in cities and towns. Governments have responded through immediate food security measures in the form of cash grants and free food distribution. It is to be noted that livelihood disruptions led to implementation of quick cash and food support measures to protect vulnerable households of both poor and rich countries. Getting the food supply chains back on the rails is identified as an important step towards a healthy recovery of both rural and urban economies of developing countries.

The pandemic and its response also highlight the vulnerability of populations to shocks that disrupt their livelihoods and social support mechanisms. The need for universal social protection is all the more critical at this juncture. SDR 2020 points out “As part of any comprehensive response to the pandemic, governments should promote new instruments of social protection, including a new Global Fund for Social Protection that was proposed to address SDG 1 (No Poverty) even before the pandemic, but which is even more urgently needed now in response to it.”

Need for global solidarity

There are few more aspects that need attention at this juncture in order to ensure SDGs are on track in the post-COVID 19 recovery phase. Firstly solidarity and partnerships are critical to address and prevent health, economic and humanitarian crises. This is all the more important as the geopolitics and global trade dynamics are pushing countries towards more nationalistic and inward looking policy and governance regimes. These pose a serious challenge for the health equity, especially in relation to supply chains of COVID-19 vaccine distribution and related measures. Participation of all the countries in the WHO inspired network, GAVI is critical at this moment. Areas of cooperation across the countries can be in the areas of best practice dissemination in relation to health responses; financing and R&D

for drugs and vaccines, financing mechanisms for the economic recovery of the poor and developing countries, addressing hunger and food insecurity of vulnerable communities living in hunger hotspots and knowledge and finally lending the support to the UN system by the member countries.

In order to have sound policies and informed debate and discussion, it is imperative to have data and statistics related to SDG indicators and all other related indicators. SDG report 2020 points out that “Data gaps and time lags in official statistics require urgent investments in statistical capacity and increased coordination between governments and the private sector.” The Myanmar Government needs to work on this area with urgency as it lags significantly in this domain.