Devex Newswire: SDGs in peril, and more so now

Doubts over the Sustainable Development Goals and reaching their fast-approaching 2030 deadline (surely movable) have been heightened in recent days after the United States, United Kingdom, and assorted allies rejected wording in a draft declaration ahead of a key summit next month. Also in today’s edition: A U.S. food security official explains how his grandmother colored his way of thinking about farming; plus, we look at how much is spent on SDGs, and Nigerians prepare for the worst. SDGs doubts increase While lofty and definitely worthwhile, the SDGs are arguably pretty unlikely to be achieved on time — especially ending world hunger by the end of the decade. Hunger is on the increase and nowhere near being eliminated. But a new spanner has been tossed into the mix. The U.S., U.K, and allies have blocked agreement on a draft declaration advocating the need to accelerate progress on a set of the targets at a major summit at the United Nations headquarters next month, according to several diplomatic sources. The Biden administration objected to some key provisions in the draft, including calls to reform the international financial system and establish a multibillion-dollar development stimulus plan, insisting such matters are addressed within financial institutions and multilateral banks, our Colum Lynch finds. The U.S. says it’s committed to the reform, but it doesn’t like how it is handled in the draft. “The achievement of the SDGs is in peril,” the draft declaration states. “At the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, we are alarmed that the progress on most SDGs is either moving much too slowly or has regressed below the 2015 baseline.” Next month’s diplomatic talks on the 17 SDGs come at the midpoint of the 2030 deadline. But there are growing doubts they will be achieved, writes Colum. The negotiations, led by Qatar and Ireland, have largely been placed on pause and won’t resume until later this month or early next, when delegates gather in New York for a marathon session aimed at reaching a deal before world leaders gather in New York for the Sept. 18-19 summit. World leaders will meet at the Turtle Bay neighborhood in Manhattan, on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly, to show support for the 2015 development goals that seek to end poverty and hunger and dramatically improve the standard of living for the majority of the world population by 2030. While they will likely adopt a declaration acknowledging a backslide in the global effort to meet the goals and a need for acceleration over the next 15 years, the U.S. and its partners balked over a section of the text, subtitled “Call to action — turning our world towards 2030,” that spells out specific steps to accomplish that. Exclusive: US, allies block major UN development declaration + Listen: In the latest episode of our weekly podcast series, Devex Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar was joined by George Ingram, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as well as Spark MicroGrants CEO and co-founder Sasha Fisher, to discuss USAID’s localization push and the impact of U.K. aid cuts. More than just eggs Cary Fowler, U.S. special envoy for global food security, learned about keeping more than eggs in one basket from his grandmother. Watching her tend chickens, pigs, cows, and an assortment of crops on her Tennessee farm taught him a thing or two about diversity. A range of crops and rotation keeps the soil healthy, the envoy told my colleague Teresa Welsh in Rome at the U.N. Food Systems Summit stocktaking event. “We didn’t put all of our eggs in one basket,” said Fowler, 73, adding that they learned from a regional experimental farm what to grow and when. “From a very early age I guess I just soaked up the fact that having good, improved seed varieties is pretty critical to farming. If you have bad seeds, you’re going to have a bad harvest.” He saw firsthand how vulnerable farmers are to shocks and how the delicate balance on the farm can be upended by poor-quality inputs or conditions ranging from soil quality to weather patterns. It can also be upended by war, he told Teresa. Ukraine is one of the world’s top grain exporters, and the war has driven prices, particularly in low-income nations, so high that basic staples are now out of reach for millions. Last month, Russia abruptly ended a U.N.-brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain. It also now appears to be targeting the country’s agricultural infrastructure, bombing grain silos. Both of these bode ill for the country’s farmers, Fowler said. Silos that aren’t destroyed are already going to be full of previous years’ crops. So to help build resilience and reduce dependence on imports from places such as Ukraine, Fowler championed a new initiative — the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils — aimed at increasing investment in traditional and indigenous crops. The U.S. announced $100 million to support the initiative last month. Read: Doing away with 'orphan' crops vital for global food security, says US envoy + For more content like this, sign up to Devex Dish, a weekly newsletter on the transformation of the global food system. Preparing for the worst Nigerian households receiving cash transfers before a flood were less likely to go hungry or resort to drastic measures like skipping meals and reducing portion sizes, according to a report from the International Rescue Committee. Last year, IRC piloted an anticipatory cash payment program in the northeastern Nigerian state of Adamawa and found that the targeted communities were more resilient to flood shocks. In addition to stockpiling food, households receiving cash transfers were more likely to take action to protect their livelihoods, such as harvesting crops early, IRC said. Google.org helped fund the pilot, which relied on flood-risk monitoring data and an early warning system to determine when cash payments should be distributed. IRC also partnered with the International Food Policy Research Institute and the Center for Disaster Protection. The study highlights the benefits of donors taking anticipatory action to support short- and long-term climate resilience, IRC said. Climate disasters are worsening and “it’s a shame that while approximately 20% of natural disasters are highly predictable, less than 1% of ODA funding is set aside for these efforts,” the group told Devex. Additional background: Inside the plan to give people cash aid before climate disasters hit Where the SDG funding goes It’s a huge number, but it’s hard to gauge if it’s a lot or not. Nearly $400 billion is spent annually on tackling the SDGs in the global south — where does that money go? We’ll tell you. Earlier this year, the secretariat supporting the Total Official Support for Sustainable Development task force shared data on spending in 2021. Resources are classified into two main pillars: any funding going to one or more identifiable recipient countries, and funding that benefits the whole world or a large part of the world, rather than particular countries. Our Miguel Antonio Tamonan trawled the data and found that in 2021, some 4.6% of the resources had SDG 17 — partnerships to achieve the goals — as its focus, while 10.8% of activities with multiple targets included it among their objectives. SDG 3 — good health and well-being — ranked next, accounting for 4.4% of the total single-SDG investments. Among multiple-SDG investments, 7% had SDG 3. SDG 7 — affordable and clean energy — also accounted for 4.4% of single-SDG investments. Around 3.6% of those with multiple targets included SDG 7. Meanwhile, 45% of the resources in 2021 were classified as “not marked” — which means that 45% of expenditures were reported without an SDG target. This represents an improvement from the previous year, where 48% of the activities were not allocated to at least one SDG. It’s complicated, so better to look at Miguel’s story. Read: Almost $400B is spent each year on the SDGs — where does it go? (Pro) + Not yet a Devex Pro member? Access all our exclusive reporting and analysis by starting your 15-day free trial of Pro today. In other news Turkey will no longer host next year’s U.N. biodiversity summit, or COP 16, citing three major earthquakes that devastated parts of the country. [The Guardian] Researchers have discovered a strain of bacteria that could be key to preventing the transmission of malaria from mosquitoes to humans. [BBC] The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency has urged an end to clashes at the Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, where 13 people have died and more than 60 have been injured. [UN News] Sign up to Newswire for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development.