Solidarity and Partnerships are Key to Defeating COVID-19 and Achieving the SDGs

In 2015, World Leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  The 17 SDGs call for action by all countries to promote prosperity while maintaining peace, protecting the planet, the people and building partnerships. With only ten years remaining to achieve these goals, countries are accelerating steps towards ending poverty, fighting inequalities, tackling climate change and ensuring that no one is left behind.  Every month, the United Nations places one of the 17 SDGs under the spotlight, highlighting its purpose, targets and criticality in advancing Agenda 2030. This month’s focus is SDG 17: Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

As the Sustainable Development Goal for the month for June is SDG 17 on Partnerships, one can’t help but think of the following famous African Proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Sustainable development requires inclusive partnerships at the global, regional, national and local levels, which are built upon a shared vision and goals that place people and the planet at the centre of development.

This year marks the Decade of Action towards achieving SDGs by 2030. This calls for acceleration of our efforts together. Achieving the SDGs by 2030 requires concerted actions by civil society, businesses, international bodies, organizations of faith, and individuals, among other actors. Indeed, the SDGs can only be realized with strong partnerships and cooperation.

Early this year, COVID-19 engulfed the world. The pandemic has swiftly taken hundreds of thousands of lives, infected millions of people, upended the global economy and caused pervasive fear for the future. However, the pandemic is more than a health crisis; it is an economic, humanitarian, security and human rights crisis. COVID-19 has highlighted severe fragilities and inequalities within and among nations. At the same time and possibly for the first time in human history, all of humanity is on the same side against the common enemy, coronavirus disease. 

As stated by World Leaders in their virtual high-level meeting of 28 May 2020, defeating the pandemic will require a whole-of-society, whole-of-Government and whole-of-the-world approach driven by compassion and solidarity. In this regard, recently, His Majesty King Mswati III called on Commonwealth countries to work together to defeat COVID19.

COVID-19 knows no boundaries. As demonstrated by the devastations of the pandemic around the globe over the past months,  no country can overcome the coronavirus disease alone. Global solidarity is not only a moral imperative, it is in everyone’s interests. The world has never been in greater need for solidarity amongst regions, nations, sectors, communities and citizens. It has been encouraging in this regard to witness people in Eswatini and across the world come together in unity and solidarity through donations, technical assistance and other forms of  contributions to support  the fight against COVID-19.

On 19 June 2020, the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Antonio Guterres launched the UN Comprehensive Response to COVID-19 aimed at saving lives, protecting societies and recovering better. This policy document seeks to provide guidance for countries to develop strategies and programmes for building back better and use the crisis as an opportunity to address the climate crisis, inequalities, exclusion, gaps in social protection systems and the many other fragilities and injustices that have been exposed by COVID-19. 

In Eswatini, after His Majesty King Mswati III declared COVID-19 a State of Emergency in March 2020, Governments (USA, Taiwan, Morocco, Ethiopia, and India to name only a few); the United Nations; the European Union; the World Bank; the Global Fund, philanthropic organizations such as Jack Ma foundation and Kirsh Foundation, the private sector, the academia, the media, civil society organizations such as World Vision, International Red Cross Society, Medicins Sans Frontieres, local civil society organizations and ordinary citizens through direct support to vulnerable people such as orphans, the elderly, persons living with disabilities; communities as well as individuals, including through donations made to the National Resource Mobilization Committee came together as One in support of the fight against the pandemic and thus, to save lives and livelihoods in the Kingdom.

This support has helped to strengthen the health systems, ensured access to medical supplies and equipment, and has provided much needed food and cash assistance to the most affected persons in the communities.

In April 2020, the United Nations launched a COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), which brings together all UN agencies, funds, and programmes to fight the pandemic while ensuring that the response reaches to the most vulnerable populations, including refugees, internally displaced persons, the elderly, youth, women and girls, persons living with disabilities and with conditions such as albinism and diabetes.

The HRP is focused on three strategic priorities:

1) Public Health Response – which seeks to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and decrease morbidity and mortality.

2) Socioeconomic Impact – which seeks to decrease the deterioration of human assets and rights, social cohesion, and livelihoods.

3) Social protection – which seeks to protect, assist, and advocate for vulnerable populations, including refugees, internally displaced people, migrants, people with disabilities, children and the elderly.

The UN Secretary-General has also issued a series of policy briefs, including the UN Comprehensive Response to COVID-19,  that outline a global vision for the delivery of an effective and coordinated response to COVID-19 by the international community that ensures that the most vulnerable populations are at the centre of national responses, impacts of the crisis are mitigated and opportunities to recover better are identified and harnessed amidst the pandemic.

In March 2020, the Secretary-General issued the Shared Responsibility, Global Solidarity report as well as the UN Framework for immediate socio-economic response to COVID-19 report in April 2020. On 23 June 2020, at the invitation of the Prime Minister, His Excellency Mr. Ambrose Dlamini, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Eswatini presented those key reports to the  Cabinet.

The Government and partners at all levels, in and outside Eswatini, have been working tirelessly to ensure that coronavirus does not spiral out of control. The dedication and efforts of the COVID 19 Task Teams and Regional Teams under the leadership of the Deputy Prime Minister, Senator Themba Masuku, continue to address heads-on infection prevention and control through contact tracing, impact mitigation, general public awareness and social mobilization.

Solidarity and partnerships are at work and high speed in the preparation for the re-opening of schools and educational institutions. Under the leadership of the Government, and in consultation with key stakeholders such as teachers organizations, the UN, donors community and others, a framework to guide the safe re-opening of schools and tertiary institutions has been developed. The safety and welfare of pupils remains high priority and will require the collaboration and the support of all stakeholders, including the parents.

The UN in Eswatini continues to stand in solidarity with the Government, partners and the people of the Kingdom. We continue to strive for a people-centered response to COVID-19 by engaging with communities, promoting respect for human rights and inclusion, advocating for gender equality and dignity for all.

UN Eswatini has partnered with the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) to enhance the coordination of our humanitarian response, assess vulnerability levels and individuals at risk of being left behind, improve prioritization and reduce duplications while ensuring that assistance and protection are provided to vulnerable populations who need them the most.

At the request of NDMA and in close collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN Eswatini recently introduced the 4W Mapping Tool: an online tool that maps out the geographical presence of all partners by sector and provides a graphical analysis of the number and type of partners in each sector, as well as gaps or duplications in the assistance that is rendered. The 4W tool is aimed at enhancing the coordination of all partners to ensure an efficient and timely response that leaves no one behind in Eswatini.

COVID-19 knows no boundaries. Equally, our resolve and efforts to recover and build a better future for all shall not be limited by our fears, anxieties, perceptions, present challenges and limitations, or any border or hurdle on our way to recovery.

Let us move forward as partners who face the same relentless and very lethal enemy and as partners engaged in a war that continues to claims lives and livelihoods: a war that can only be won through unity, solidarity and partnerships. In that process, let’s ensure that we leave no one behind in Eswatini’s efforts to fight and recover from COVID-19, and ultimately deliver on our promises to protect the people and our planet.

###

Facts and Figures

• Official development assistance stood at $146.6 billion in 2017. This represents a decrease of 0.6 per cent in real terms over 2016.
• 79 per cent of imports from developing countries enter developed countries duty-free.
• The debt burden on developing countries remains stable at about 3 per cent of export revenue.
• The number of Internet users in Africa almost doubled in the past four years
• 30 per cent of the world’s youth are digital natives, active online for at least five years. 
• But more four billion people do not use the Internet, and 90 per cent of them are from the developing world

Goal 17 Targets

Finance

• Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection
• Developed countries to implement fully their official development assistance commitments, including the commitment by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 per cent of ODA/GNI to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of ODA/GNI to least developed countries ODA providers are encouraged to consider setting a target to provide at least 0.20 per cent of ODA/GNI to least developed countries
• Mobilize additional financial resources for developing countries from multiple sources
• Assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability through coordinated policies aimed at fostering debt financing, debt relief and debt restructuring, as appropriate, and address the external debt of highly indebted poor countries to reduce debt distress
• Adopt and implement investment promotion regimes for least developed countries

Technology

• Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism
• Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed
• Fully operationalize the technology bank and science, technology and innovation capacity-building mechanism for least developed countries by 2017 and enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology

Capacity building

• Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the sustainable development goals, including through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation

Trade

• Promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization, including through the conclusion of negotiations under its Doha Development Agenda
• Significantly increase the exports of developing countries, in particular with a view to doubling the least developed countries’ share of global exports by 2020
• Realize timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all least developed countries, consistent with World Trade Organization decisions, including by ensuring that preferential rules of origin applicable to imports from least developed countries are transparent and simple, and contribute to facilitating market access

Systemic issues

Policy and institutional coherence

• Enhance global macroeconomic stability, including through policy coordination and policy coherence
• Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development
• Respect each country’s policy space and leadership to establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development

Multi-stakeholder partnerships

• Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries
• Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships

Data, monitoring and accountability

• By 2020, enhance capacity-building support to developing countries, including for least developed countries and small island developing States, to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts
• By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries.