By: Staff Writer
April 28, 2023
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said in their “Halfway to 2030 in Latin America and the Caribbean,” report that the “cascading crises” from the COVID-19 pandemic had complicated an already challenging pathway towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).
ECLAC also said that some indicators that were on track got changed off-course while others with a low probability were shifted off course while even more so the ones that were unlikely before the pandemic struck in 2020 to hit their target are even further off track.
The report also said: “All of this points to the need to strengthen public strategies, policies and programmes, with initiatives from and in partnership with the private sector, civil society and international cooperation agencies to get back on track towards the full implementation of the SDGs by 2030, or, where this is not feasible, as close to 2030 as possible.
It continued that there is also a, “need for a far-reaching vision that can help design and execute transformative policies and initiatives, as well as cooperation and sharing of experiences and lessons learned among countries of the region, in particular in institutional capacity-building and strengthening, a key prerequisite for accelerating progress towards sustainable development.”
The SDGs were formulated in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as part of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which sought to create a future global development framework to succeed the Millennium Development Goals, which ended that year.
There are 17 SDGs altogether, which include an end to poverty, zero hunger and good health and well-being. Latin America and the Caribbean is falling behind on many of them. One SDG in particular, clean water and sanitation, the report said: “The favourable trend in the indicators associated with targets access to drinking water and sanitation, is not sufficient to achieve universal access by 2030. Therefore, although there have been recent improvements in that regard in the region as a whole, there were still 161m people without access to safely managed drinking water in 2020, while 431m people lacked safely managed sanitation services.”
While the proportion of water bodies of good quality has improved, it is still insufficient to satisfy the growing population in time to meet the 2030 target.
The report added: “Access to water of poor quality is not an acceptable solution, because this affects the achievement of other targets and Goals, for example SDG goal 3, “healthy lives and well-being,” which includes among its targets combatting water-borne diseases.
“In that regard, it is estimated that 25 percent of the rivers of Latin America have severe pathogenic pollution, with monthly concentrations of faecal coliform bacteria greater than 1,000 units per 100 ml as a direct result of the lack of wastewater treatment. In 2016, it was estimated that 5.7m disability-adjusted life years had been lost as a consequence of illnesses related to lack of access to drinking water and sanitation, valued at US$ 1.8bn in 2016 dollars.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its sixth assessment report (IPCC, 2022), argued that Central America is highly vulnerable in the water sector. Dry regions, such as the Central America Dry Corridor, which are home to large populations and where water demand is up, are already showing signs of water stress. Successful adaptation seeks to overcome social inequalities and incorporate nature-based solutions, such as wetland restoration and infrastructure for water storage and infiltration, with synergies for ecosystem conservation and disaster risk reduction