Use SDGs as blueprint to recover better from COVID-19: UNGA president

Volkan Bozkir, president of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, on Friday asked member states to use the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the blueprint for recovery from COVID-19, reported Xinhua.

"Halting the spread of COVID-19 and regaining progress against the SDGs must be our collective priority," said Bozkir. "It will not be easy, but the SDGs themselves provide us the very blueprint needed to recover -- better."

"We must look to 2020 with renewed vigor. The pandemic may have set us back. But it can also be the board from which we bounce back further and faster," he told the first SDG Moment, a high-level event to galvanize global efforts toward the SDGs.

"As countries across the globe embark on socio-economic recovery plans, let them be guided by the SDGs. Let us choose a more equal, more green, more resilient world," he said.

The pandemic has created severe setbacks. In less than a year, the world has seen social and economic damage on a scale not seen since World War II: at least 71 million people are being pushed into extreme poverty; approximately 270 million people face acute food insecurity; and an estimated 1.6 billion children and youth have seen their education threatened, he said.

But Bozkir noted that progress on the SDGs was inconsistent and off-course well before COVID-19 shook the world. "The pandemic has unveiled the dangers inherent in delay. It has reminded us, starkly, of the need to act."

Not since the United Nations was founded has the world required such levels of collaboration, cooperation and dialogue. These are the moments for which the United nations was built, said Bozkir.

The SDG Moment will be convened by the UN secretary-general annually till 2030 to match the Decade of Action for the SDGs.