Pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals in a World Reshaped by COVID-19: Foundational Research Report

This report advances existing monitoring and forecasting initiatives in three ways. First, it provides, for selected goals and targets, especially those related to human development, projections for the path of progress that the world seemed to be on prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, despite the still very high levels of uncertainty around the ultimate course of the pandemic, it considers the possible impact on longer-term progress. Third, it explores the potential impact of a broad and integrated program of initiatives intended to move us more quickly toward achieving the goals.
The SDG Push scenario successfully increases the rate of progress toward the targets sufficiently to overcome the global losses of even the High Damage COVID scenario before 2030 for most target variables. On top of the baseline COVID scenario it greatly increases the number of countries reaching target levels by 2030 and 2050.