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 to help create a safer and fairer world and I was happy that mankind had at last understood the urgent need to live more sustainably and harmoniously with other living things on this, our only, home planet. 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 by the COVID 19 Pandemic.

This blog on SDG 2 – Zero hunger is the 2nd of 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.

Just before the COVID 19 pandemic, 650 million people were going hungry and around 2 billion were suffering food insecurity. The crisis disrupted food supply chains and economic slowdowns have affected food systems worldwide and imposed additional threats to global food security and nutrition making the target of ending hunger by 2030 even more difficult. COVID -19 effects on household income will increase all forms of malnutrition. Even without the impact of Covid 19 , there were 230 million children already suffering from malnutrition and these numbers will have increased significantly due to the pandemic.

Life threatening malnutrition ( called “wasting” ) results in weight loss and affected 45.4 million children in 2020 and it has been estimated that there is likely to be a 15% increase in wasting as a direct result of the Covid effects on household income.

Another effect of malnutrition is incidence of anaemia which , in pregnant women, can increase the risk of adverse outcomes for mother and baby and be an additional risk factor for severe illness from Covid 19. In 2019, the Global prevalence of anaemia in women of reproductive age was 29.9% ( putting 500 million women at risk ), 29.6% in non-pregnant women and 36.5% in pregnant women. In Central and Southern Asia already almost half the women between the ages of 15- 49 suffer from Anaemia

The disruption of health services and food systems , added to the economic impacts on household incomes due to the Pandemic will undoubtedly have increased incidence of malnutrition ,worsened the prevalence of anaemia and increased risks to mothers and babies
It is going to take even greater efforts if the 2030 target of reducing anaemia in women of reproductive age by 50 % and achieving zero hunger are to be achieved

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 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 planet. 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 by the COVID 19 Pandemic

This blog on SDG 1– Poverty is the first of 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. Millions have died , tens of millions will have recurring health problems , $billions have been lost and many of the promising development gains of recent decades have been stalled or even reversed.

The numbers in extreme poverty ( living on $1.90 per day) has actually increased for the first time in 20 years and has wiped out all the hard-won gains made in recent decades Between 2010 and 2019 the global population in extreme poverty fell steadily from 14% to about 6% but (as a result of the Pandemic) an additional 119-124 million were pushed back into extreme poverty in 2020 increasing those in extreme poverty to 738 million . The Pandemic intensified inequalities within and amongst countries and also exposed deep-rooted problems such as inadequate health coverage and lack of social welfare. This has brought additional financial pressures on many – especially to those in lower income countries where there are few or no social protection systems.

Although social protection measures are common in the high-income countries ( HICs) and around 85% of their populations have at least 1 social protection support measure , in low- income countries (LICs) only 13.4 % have such support and for the vulnerable persons in such countries, only 7.8% have any support leaving them badly exposed when unexpected emergencies occur. Hence, although 49% of the Global population is covered by some social protection , this still leaves 4 billion people without any such protection – and most of these are in low-income countries.

Despite working hard to survive, around 1/3rd of people in employment in the developing world remain in extreme poverty and even there, inequalities and gender gaps remain between men and women . Around 33% of women in employment actually live in extreme poverty whereas for men, the percentage is 28.3%.. Most sadly, the aspirational target to eliminate extreme poverty completely by 2030 as included in the original SDGs now looks to be out of reach and it is now expected that there will still be 7% of the global population in extreme poverty in 2030

Mother Earth

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