Category: Mother Earth’s Blog

Dear Mankind and most favoured of my children

You will recall my earliest blogs ( mother Earth blogs ) welcomed the Global initiative to develop the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs) to help create a safer and fairer world and I was happy that mankind had at last understood the need to live more sustainably and harmoniously with other living things on this, our only, home. Some good progress was starting to be being made in some areas but sadly most of this encouraging activity was brought to an abrupt halt or in some cases, even reversed by the COVID 19 Pandemic.

This blog on SDG 8- Decent Work and Economic Growth is the next in a series of updates to review the effects of the COVID 19 Pandemic on the aspirations and targets of each of the original 17 SDGS and to look ahead to the prospects in each sector.

The Pandemic has had an unprecedented economic and human toll on Human societies around the world and has disrupted economic activities Globally resulting in the greatest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 2020 8.8% of global working hours ( equivalent to 255 million full time jobs ) were lost. Informal employment, often the lowest paid and done by women and young people was particularly severely hit as they lacked adequate protections against lockdowns and illness. By 2020 the number of people unemployed went up by 33 million to reach 220 million with women and young persons being hardest hit with 8.7 % and 5.0% respectively losing their jobs

Tourism declined by 74% during the Pandemic causing devastation to tourism dependent communities and to all the hospitality services ( hotels, restaurants etc.) that depend on travellers. Many of these services are often low paid and tend to be done by women and young persons so these groups of society again bore the brunt of the resulting economic impact.

Before the pandemic, informal employment represented 60.2% of global employment ( 2 billion people worldwide ) but in the least developed countries it accounted for 88.7% of employment in 2019. It is estimated that ¾ of the informal economy workers ( 1.8 billion ) were significantly affected by the Pandemic and many of them were pushed into poverty.

Renewed efforts will be needed if targets are to be achieved in this sector.

Mother Earth
Sources : The Sustainable Development Goals Reports 2019 -2021 , United nations, New York

Dear Mankind and most favoured of my children

You will recall my earliest blogs ( mother Earth blogs ) welcomed the Global initiative to develop the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs) to help create a safer and fairer world and I was happy that mankind had at last understood the need to live more sustainably and harmoniously with other living things on this, our only, home. Some good progress was starting to be being made in some areas but sadly most of this encouraging activity was brought to an abrupt halt or in some cases , even reversed by the COVID 19 Pandemic

This blog on SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy is the next in a series of updates to review the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic on the aspirations and targets of each of the original 17 SDGS and to look ahead to the prospects in each sector

The Pandemic has had an unprecedented economic and human toll on Human societies around the world . Progress was being made during last Decade in providing access to electricity. Globally access improved from 83% in 2010 to 90% in 2019 resulting in 1.1billion people receiving electricity for the first time . However even then ,759 million were still without access by 2019 and over 1/3rd of global population still lacked access to clean cooking fuels and technologies

The Pandemic has reversed the progress made and millions have now lost access to electricity. In most of Africa and Asia basic electrical services have become unaffordable and more than 25 million people who previously had access have now lost it and another 80 million are having to scale back use of electricity because of rising costs . In 2010 only 57% of global population was using clean fuels / technologies and this had increased to 66% by 2019 . However this still left 2.6 billion people without access to clean fuels many of whom live in sub–Saharan Africa where 85% of the population still rely on inefficient or dangerous cooking systems.

Concerted action and substantial investment is needed in this sector if Global targets are to be met especially in the least developed countries which are falling further and further behind . At present rate of progress there will still be 660 million without access to electricity by 2030

Mother Earth
Sources : The Sustainable Development Goals Reports 2019 -2021 , United nations, New York