Towards the 5th anniversary of the approval of the 2030 Agenda

There is a decade to go and the United Nations recognises the difficulty of achieving the SDGs by 2030. “Now, just a decade ahead, is the time to step up the pace and efforts to implement the Agenda 2030,” writes our partner Fons Mallorquí de Solidaritat i Cooperació.

25 September 2020 marks five years since the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is implemented through 17 Goals. Over these five years, the governments of developed and developing countries have aligned the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with national policies and strategies, undertaken concrete actions, measures and initiatives in advancing various SDGs in line with the national priorities, reaching communities and interest groups. Also, some companies have begun to integrate the SDGs into their practices.

Despite the actions taken, the United Nations recognises that we are not on track to achieve the SDGs by 2030, even before the health crisis started. For example, child malnutrition increased, the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to push tens of millions of people back into extreme poverty, and it is estimated that 26.4% of the world’s population, about 2 billion of people, were affected by food insecurity.

The pandemic has undoubtedly had an impact on the progress of the 2030 Agenda and in this regard the importance is emphasised, now more than ever, of continuing to carry out international cooperation actions, as the 2030 Agenda is committed to sustainable development on a global scale. Now, just a decade ahead, is the time to step up the pace and efforts to implement it.

In this sense, the Mallorcan Fund, since incorporating the application and promotion of the 2030 Agenda into its lines of work, has made such an effort so that the Agenda is known and demanded of Local and Regional Governments by the Mallorcan population, as if to apply to all cooperation and awareness projects funded by the entity.

Thus, through the “Commitments to the 2030 Agenda” campaign,  the Fund has offered since 2018 seminars and conferences to raise awareness and catalyze action among citizens, society, the political sphere, companies, academia and the media, among others.

These five years also leave positive things such as the increase in school enrollment rates, the representation of women in parliaments or the global financing for climate. Either way, it’s time to be more than ever committed.

Learn more about what our partners do in the localisation of the SDGs in our latest publication with CEMR “The 2030 Agenda through the eyes of local and regional governments’ associations“.