Accelerating SDG Progress in Asia - Pacific.

Byline: Kaveh Zahedi and Van Nguyen

The 2030 Agenda is coming to life", declared the Secretary General at the opening of the first SDG Summit, a quadrennial event for the follow up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As leaders from Asia - Pacific took the floor, they highlighted country progress of SDG implementation and reaffirmed commitment to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Statements reflected different approaches across the region. Yet all converged on one priority: accelerated actions and transformative pathways.

Because we are not on track

Earlier this year, our Asia Pacific SDG Progress Report emphasized the region will not achieve any of the 17 SDGs by 2030 at the current pace of progress. While less people in Asia and the Pacific are living in extreme poverty (Goal 1), the poorest are harder to reach. They are more vulnerable to stresses and shocks as progress in reducing inequality has stagnated (Goal 10). Our region's stubborn reliance on fossil fuels (Goal 7) continues to anchor countries to the grey economy of the past, shroud crowded cities with smog (Goal 11), and put millions of lives at risk (Goal 3). Communities living in low lying coastal areas are seeing their homes being swept Accelerating SDG Progress in Asia - Pacific Kaveh Zahedi and Van Nguyen away by rising sea levels (Goal 11) as climate actions have yet to take effect (Goal 13).

Business as usual is simply not an option

Accelerating progress is essentially not about advancing on a single or a cluster of goals. Transformations are needed in the underlying systems behind the 17 Goals. Six entry points identified in the Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 offer a clear pathway to trigger change and multiply the impacts of our actions.

They resonate greatly with the development challenges of Asia - Pacific

Investing in human well-being and capabilities such as increased public spending in Asia - Pacific to match the global average in the area of education, health and social protection, can lift over 328 million out of extreme poverty by 2030. It will also allow us to build resilience of the most vulnerable populations against external shocks, as revealed in ESCAP's 2018 Social Outlook for Asia Pacific.

Increased investment to achieve energy decarburization and universal access to energy would allow our region to reduce energy-related carbon dioxide emission by almost 30%; and avoid nearly 2 million premature deaths by 2030, as shown in...