SDGs and COVID-19

In September 2015, world leaders worked together to adopt a universal agenda for all countries and stakeholders to use as a blueprint for progress on economic, social, and environmental sustainability. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 Targets, and a Global Indicator Framework, providing countries a management tool to implement development strategies and to monitor and achieve progress.

Earth observations and geospatial information are uniquely suited to drive progress on, and to help plan, monitor, and report on the SDGs through: the generation of high-quality and timely information; facilitation of effective comparisons of results among different countries; addressing data gaps; and contributing to the disaggregation of SDG indicators.

In the context of the current global crisis caused by COVID-19, countries are faced with a multitude of challenges that extend beyond the public health sector to most social, economic, and environmental aspects of everyday life. During these challenging times, Earth observations and geospatial information can help governments, civil society, and communities around the world better monitor, understand, and help mitigate this pandemic, while also tracking and supporting critical decision-making related to the associated impacts on economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

You are invited to join global participants in developing creative solutions that will help countries track COVID-19 related impacts on their progress towards achieving the SDGs. This challenge invites you to analyze the impact of COVID-19 UN SDG targets by looking at the current and ongoing change in the monitoring indicators of the UN SDGs using Earth observation/remote sensing (EO/RS) and global Earth system model-derived analysis products. Your challenge is to inform the general public and support local managers and public agencies (e.g., national statistical offices, ministries, national mapping agencies), civil society organizations, and local communities by using Earth observations to track, quantify, and visualize the impact of COVID-19 on SDG targets and indicators, with an emphasis on: SDG 2 (food production and security), SDG 3 (health and well-being), SDG 6 (availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation), SDG 7 (energy access and resilience), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities), including human mobility and transport networks, and SDG 15 (life on land).

Considerations:

Areas of particular interest include these SDGs and their associated Targets:

• SDG 2, Zero Hunger
• Target 2.4, By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality
  • Indicator 2.4.1, Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture
• SDG 3, Health and Well Being
  • Target 3.9, By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination
    • Indicator 3.9.1, Mortality rate attributed to household and ambient air pollution
• SDG 6, Clean Water and Sanitation
  • Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Consider all relevant targets.
• SDG 7, Access to Clean and Affordable Energy
  • Target 7.1, By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services
    • Indicator 7.1.1, Proportion of population with access to electricity
  • Target 7.3, By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency
    • Indicator 7.3.1, Energy intensity measured in terms of primary energy and GDP
• SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • Target 11.5, By 2030, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations
    • Indicator 11.5.2, Direct disaster economic loss in relation to the global GDP, including disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services
  • Target 11.6, By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management
    • Indicator 11.6.2, Annual mean levels of fine particulate matter (e.g. PM2.5 and PM10) in cities (population weighted)
  • Your own metric (indicator) to understand population mobility, where people are, who is most at risk, and other associated impacts
• SDG 15, Life on Land
  • Target 15.2, By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally
    • Target 15.2.1, Progress towards sustainable forest management
  • Target 15.5, Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species
    • Indicator 15.5.1, Red List Index
• PLEASE BE SURE TO SPECIFY the SDG(s)/Target(s)/Indicator(s) that your solution is addressing. You can also propose a NEW indicator that can better inform a relevant SDG/ Target and COVID-19’s associated impacts on this area.
• The most compelling solutions to this challenge will clearly manifest benefits for user communities – local and national authorities responsible for SDG monitoring and reporting, UN agencies, other major groups and stakeholders – by helping them use Earth observations to understand and address COVID-19 associated impacts on specific SDG targets and indicators on a local, national or global scale.
• Using EO/RS from GPM (precipitation), SMAP (soil moisture), GRACE (groundwater), MODIS/VIIRS/Landsat/Sentinel (surface characterization, surface emissions), and products from GEOS-5/MERRA-2, you can assess changes in the indicators for monitoring SDGs such as water availability (water stress), changes in agricultural food production systems, energy consumption, and other associated changes caused by the response to COVID-19.
• Comparing the present levels/values of the SDG indicators with a reference baseline from the previous year(s) will provide an integrated picture of the impact of COVID-19.

Combining SDG properties with socio-economic data can give an indication of the global economic impact of the pandemic. Quantifying rates of change could yield valuable prediction guidance for further propagation and downstream impacts on the global economy, as well as demonstrate the degree of resilience that is needed for future sustainability of natural ecosystems and human societies.

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