WHILE the Philippines has a “good track record” in its efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the country is encountering many “last mile” challenges, according to the United Nations and Asian Development Bank (ADB).
This assessment is based on the Asia-Pacific SDG Partnership Report-Fast-Tracking the Sustainable Development Goals recently launched by the UN Economic and Social Commission for the Asia and the Pacific (Unescap), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and ADB.
Unescap said the coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic is bound to create a significant impact in meeting the SDGs. The pandemic has already caused economies to post gross domestic product (GDP) growth contractions and is expected to increase the number of poor worldwide.
“We have reached a point of great risks and opportunities for this world. If we are to tackle the fragilities this crisis has exposed, then our recovery must break with the past. It must pursue equality, inclusion, sustainability and transformation. It must bring the fundamental calling of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to life,” said United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed in a statement.
The report gauged the performance of countries and economies in meeting the SDGs. They evaluated this performance of meeting the SDGs in terms of six transformative points—strengthening human well-being and capabilities; shifting toward sustainable and just economies; and building sustainable food systems and healthy nutrition patterns.
The other three transformative points are achieving energy decarbonization and universal access to energy; promoting sustainable urban and peri-urban development; and securing the global environmental commons.
Countries are deemed fast-risers in a transformative point if they are rising fast in terms of meeting the SDGs but still have a long way to go.
They are considered aspirants if they have slow rates of change and have many needs when it comes to meeting the goals.
These countries are sprinters if they are racing ahead, while they are deemed last milers if they have a good track record but are having difficulties closing last-mile gaps.
The Philippines was deemed a “last miler” in achieving energy decarbonization and universal access to energy; promoting sustainable urban and peri-urban development; and securing the global environmental commons.
The country was deemed an aspirant in strengthening human well-being and capabilities and building sustainable food systems and healthy nutrition patterns.
The report said the Philippines was considered a sprinter in shifting toward sustainable and just economies.
“One of the report’s key findings is that higher income is not a silver bullet to address the challenges posed by SDGs and achieve accelerated progress along transformative pathways. Low-income and lower middle-income countries emerged as some of the fastest-moving countries in the region,” Unescap said in a news statement.
In terms of energy decarbonization and universal access to energy, this transformative area includes indicators on increasing the proportion of population with access to electricity, urban and rural and reducing the proportion of population with primary reliance on clean fuels and technology.
The transformative area also includes increasing the renewable-energy share in the total final energy consumption; and energy intensity which is measured in megajoules per constant 2011 purchasing power parity GDP.
The report said promoting sustainable urban and peri-urban development include indicators on the share of the population with access to electricity in urban areas and the share of the population with access to safe drinking water in urban areas.
The transformative area also includes the indicators on share of the urban population practicing open defecation and the proportion of the population exposed to levels exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
The securing the global environmental commons transformative area includes the indicators on resource efficiency and sustainable consumption and production patterns, assessed by material footprint (per unit of GDP), domestic material consumption (per unit of GDP) and hazardous waste generated per capita.
The area also considers the results of the Ocean Health Index; the indicators on the share of key marine biodiversity areas that have protected-area status; and important sites of mountain biodiversity under protection.
The report also stated that the area also takes into consideration the results of the Red List Index; carbon-dioxide emissions from fuel combustion per capita; and carbon-dioxide emissions from fuel combustion per USD (2010) GDP.
In terms of the transformative area on strengthening human well-being and capabilities considers the country’s performance on indicators on life expectancy at birth; mean years of schooling; expected years of schooling; and gross national income (GNI) per capita.
The report stated that for building sustainable food systems and healthy nutrition patterns, the area considered the performance in indicators such as the share of undernourished people in the total population and cereal yield per hectare.
The area also took into consideration the country’s performance in terms of green-house gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture and the Agriculture Orientation Index (AOI) for Government Expenditures which is defined as the share of government expenditure divided by the agriculture value-added share of GDP.
The area on shifting toward sustainable and just economies considered the performance in indicators such as real GDP per employed person; unemployment rate; and domestic material consumption per unit GDP.
This also includes the country’s performance in manufacturing value added as a share of GDP; the Gini index of income equality; and the share of adults (15 years and older) with an account at a bank or other financial institution or with a mobile-money-service provider.
The report also highlighted strategies to accelerate transformation and helps countries compare their speed of progress with others.
It calls for clear direction, removing systemic barriers, investing in institutional and public readiness to change, and upgrading policymaking approaches to manage increasingly complex development challenges.