How SDG 16 can help salvage the 2030 Agenda in the wake of COVID-19

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has now entered a ‘Decade of Action’ meant to accelerate progress towards sustainable development that would ‘leave no one behind’.

Yet, at out the outset of this 10-year period, the 2030 Agenda is in jeopardy. With the majority of the World’s poor living in fragile and conflict affected contexts the underperformance of SDG 16 on peaceful and inclusive societies, threatens a repeat of the past, whereby the Millennium Development Goals did indeed leave people living in such contexts behind. COVID-19 has now increased the urgency of responding to this deficit, with the pandemic compounding existing conflict and violence, while threatening the erosion of fragile development gains.

When it comes to conflict, a business as usual approach to the SDGs is no longer enough.

At this event International Alert will share findings from its report with the British Council, ‘Peace is the cure: How SDG 16 can help salvage the 2030 Agenda in the wake of COVID-19’. This session will unpack the obstacles to more effectively advancing peace both in terms of SDG 16 itself and across the SDGs as a whole. It will prompt a discussion around a necessary course correction to ensure those living in fragile and conflict-affected contexts are not left behind while at the same time facing down the conflict challenges amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic. Perspectives from Nigeria, as provided by Alert’s Country Director will help ground the conversation.

Hosted by the UK Parliament’s All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the Global Goals.