To end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

Extreme hunger and malnutrition remains a barrier to sustainable development and creates a trap from which people cannot easily escape. Hunger and malnutrition mean less productive individuals, who are more prone to disease and thus often unable to earn more and improve their livelihoods. 2 billion people in the world do not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food. In 2019, 144 million children under the age of 5 were stunted, and 47 million were affected by wasting.

To ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being is important to building prosperous societies. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated health systems globally and threatens already achieved health outcomes. Most countries, especially poor countries, have insufficient health facilities, medical supplies and health care workers for the surge in demand. The pandemic has shown that in rich and poor countries alike, a health emergency can push people into bankruptcy or poverty. Concerted efforts are required to achieve universal health coverage and sustainable financing for health; address the growing burden of zoonotic and non-communicable diseases, tackle antimicrobial resistance and environmental factors contributing to ill health.

To ensure access to safe water sources and sanitation for all.

Access to water, sanitation and hygiene is a human right. The demand for water has outpaced population growth, and half the world’s population is already experiencing severe water scarcity at least one month a year. Water is essential not only to health, but also to poverty reduction, food security, peace and human rights, ecosystems and education. Nevertheless, countries face growing challenges linked to water scarcity, water pollution, degraded waterrelated ecosystems and cooperation over transboundary water basins.

To build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Economic growth, social development and climate action are heavily dependent on investments in infrastructure, sustainable industrial development and technological progress. In the face of a rapidly changing global economic landscape and increasing inequalities, sustained growth must include industrialization that first of all, makes opportunities accessible to all people, and second, is supported by innovation and resilient infrastructure.

To ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Economic and social progress over the last century has been accompanied by environmental degradation that is endangering the very systems on which our future development and very survival depend. COVID-19 offers an opportunity to develop recovery plans that will reverse current trends and shift our consumption and production patterns to a more sustainable course. A successful transition will mean improvements in resource efficiency, consideration of the entire life cycle of economic activities, and active engagement in multilateral environmental agreements

Taking urgent action to tackle climate change and its impacts.

The climate crisis continues unabated as the global community shies away from the full commitment required for its reversal. 2010-2019 was warmest decade ever recorded, bringing with it massive wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, floods and other climate disasters across continents.

To conserve and sustainably use the world’s ocean, seas and marine resources

Oceans are our planet’s life support and regulate the global climate system. They are the world’s largest ecosystem, home to nearly a million known species and containing vast untapped potential for scientific discovery. Oceans and fisheries continue to support the global population’s economic, social and environmental needs. Despite the critical importance of conserving oceans, decades of irresponsible exploitation have led to an alarming level of degradation. Current efforts to protect key marine environments and small-scale fisheries, and to invest in ocean science are not yet meeting the urgent need to safeguard this vast, yet fragile, resource. The drastic reduction in human activity brought about by the COVID19 crisis, while rooted in tragedy, is a chance for oceans to recuperate. It is also an opportunity to chart a sustainable recovery path that will ensure livelihoods for decades to come in harmony with the natural environment.

To sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss.

Forests cover nearly 31 per cent of our planet’s land area. From the air we breathe, to the water we drink, to the food we eat–forests sustain us. Forests are home to more than 80 per cent of all terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects. However, biodiversity is declining faster than at any other time in human history. Globally, one fifth of the Earth’s land area (more than 2 billion hectares) are degraded, an area nearly the size of India and the Russian Federation combined. Land degradation is undermining the well-being of some 3.2 billion people, driving species to extinction and intensifying climate change. Biodiversity and the ecosystem services it underpins can also be the basis for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction strategies as they can deliver benefits that will increase the resilience of people to the impacts of climate change.