Relationship between the measures taken at national level in Latin America and the Caribbean to address the COVID-19 pandemic and the targets of the 2030 Agenda
COVID-19 has introduced an unprecedented multidimensional global crisis that will have a significant impact on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially on the 2020 goals, and on the most vulnerable populations (ECLAC, 2020).
Governments in Latin America and the Caribbean joined other regions of the world in establishing a series of contingency measures in order to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and its consequences on the economic, social, and environmental stability of their countries. In most cases, governments have worked to maintain a balance between the health of their inhabitants and the economic system with the support of the state to help the most vulnerable groups, the strengthening of the health sector, economic incentives, among others.
These actions have been collected and analyzed at the national and sectoral level by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) through the COVID-19 Observatory that supports the follow-up and monitoring of the progress of the countries of the region in the short, medium and long-term regarding its response to the pandemic.
At the same time, the Centro de Pensamiento Estratégico Internacional (Cepei) has worked to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the production of digital content that presents the situation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs in the face of the health crisis and how this can affect it compliance. This is done to support the "Build Back Better" proposal made by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and within the framework of the Decade of Action and the achievement of Results for Sustainable Development.
By being aware of the challenges brought by the pandemic in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the region, ECLAC and Cepei have joined efforts to show the type of relationships (direct, partial, or indirect) and the possible effects (positive and negative) of the measures taken by the governments to tackle the pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, and how they could affect the 169 targets 2030 Agenda1. This exercise seeks to be an input for future analysis and research.
The exercise included four stages: the definition of conceptual elements of the COVID-19 measures and the targets of the 2030 Agenda; the establishment of criteria for the relationship between measures and targets; the identification of possible effects on those targets that were identified as related to COVID-19 measures; and the visualization of the results obtained from the analysis carried out in the previous stages.
The analysis was carried out between April and August 2020 based on the measures taken by 33 countries of the region to face the COVID-19 pandemic and which have been registered, categorized, and published in the ECLAC COVID-19 Observatory2, with information collected by ECLAC and its subregional and national offices.
The work was developed by a multidisciplinary group consisting of the Statistics Division of ECLAC and Cepei, with support from the Division for Gender Affairs, the Division for Economic Development, and the Division for Social Development of ECLAC.
1 The analysis examined the 45 measures under which the actions taken by the countries of the region are classified, published in the COVID-19 Observatory of ECLAC.
2 https://www.cepal.org/es/temas/covid-19
Compendium relationship/impact of the measures COVID-19 with the SDG's targets
By clicking on the icons, you can download the results of this exercise for the seven topics contained in the COVID-19 Observatory of ECLAC.
