UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed says the global economy is under severe stress and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are in “need of urgent rescue.”

In 2015, UN member states adopted the 2030 agenda as a peace and prosperity blueprint with 17 SDGs to be reached through a global partnership.

The UN General Assembly set the goals with a target attainment date fixed at 2030.

On Monday, Ms Mohammed told the Financing for Development Forum that financing for development was an essential part of the solution.

The UN deputy chief, who spoke on behalf of the UN chief, Antonio Guterres, said that the global response had fallen far short.

She also mentioned that many developing countries were reeling from the crippling effects of an uneven recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ticking time bomb of the climate crisis. Vaccine inequities continue.

“The war in Ukraine is now sending shockwaves through global food, energy and financial markets. Many economies are on the brink of a downward spiral of insolvency, cuts in critical investments, economic contraction and rising unemployment,” she stressed. “Decades of development progress are being eroded. The World Bank predicts that a quarter of a billion people could be pushed into extreme poverty this year.”

According to her, up to 323 million people could face acute food insecurity, noting that the essential transition to clean and sustainable energy is at enormous risk.

The top UN official said there were early signs of a tsunami of potential debt crises, deprivation, discontent and civil unrest, adding that no country, developed or developing, will be isolated from the socio-economic impacts.

She, however, told the participants that the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance was established to ensure high-level political leadership.

She also said the group was established to get ahead of the food security, energy, and financing challenges; and to implement a coordinated global response.

(NAN)