SDG10 Reduced Inequalities

At the start of 2020, COVID-19 has spread across the world at an unyielding pace. What began as global jitters has evolved into unprecedented disturbances in the economy, health systems and daily life. In Asia and the Pacific, the impacts of the pandemic have reverberated soundly among its population of more than 4 billion and in its network of vital supply chains. In the face of such challenges, the region must respond quickly and collectively to save lives and build resilience against future pandemics.

National economies have grown substantially since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century yet people have not necessarily seen an increase in opportunities to find decent work or earn a decent income. In fact, in some places, the increased productivity and rising profits associated with automation have directly impacted the availability of decent jobs. According to the International Labour Organization, more than 204 million people were unemployed in 2015, and more than 600 million new jobs are needed by 2030 just to keep pace with the growth of the working-age population.

As the world is struggling with the rapid-onset COVID-19 crisis, and while it is early to conclude which response strategies were the most successful, we can already start drawing some lessons to help shape our response to the slow-onset disaster of climate change. We share here seven such lessons on how to ensure that the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis will happen in a way that will still put the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement at the center of sustainable development efforts.

Organized by the Future Food Institute and FAO elearning Academy on 22 April 2020, this knowledge sharing experience, fully aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework, will be human and nature-centred and will reflect the shift from design-thinking to prosperity-thinking, by placing nature back at the centre of our lives. 

Decades of high economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region have transformed its socioeconomic landscape – lifting a billion people out of extreme poverty in the past two decades and raising living standards of even greater numbers. However, such growth has been accompanied by growing inequality of income and opportunity and is beginning to breach planetary limits, thus endangering the well-being of future generations. Yet, the Asia-Pacific region is not on track to achieve any of the 17 Goals by 2030 if we continue on our business-as-usual pathway.

Decades of high economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region have transformed its socioeconomic landscape – lifting a billion people out of extreme poverty in the past two decades and raising living standards of even greater numbers. However, such growth has been accompanied by growing inequality of income and opportunity and is beginning to breach planetary limits, thus endangering the well-being of future generations. Yet, the Asia-Pacific region is not on track to achieve any of the 17 Goals by 2030 if we continue on our business-as-usual pathway.

Bangkok (ESCAP news) – The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is having far-reaching economic and social consequences for the Asia-Pacific region, with strong cross-border spillover effects through trade, tourism and financial linkages, according to a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) released today.

The Asia-Pacific Declaration on Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Beijing+25 Review was adopted at a three-day Ministerial Conference, organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in November 2019.

The 2019 Human Development Report is the latest in the series of global Human Development Reports published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 1990 as independent, analytically and empirically grounded discussions of major development issues, trends and policies.