T&T placed 108 out of 165 coun­tries in the lat­est Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDG) rank­ings from the Unit­ed Na­tions.

Coun­tries were ranked by their over­all score.

The over­all score mea­sured a coun­try’s to­tal progress to­wards achiev­ing all 17 SDGs.

T&T scored 63.5 out of 100.

Which, ac­cord­ing to the cur­rent Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ grad­ing scale, would earn us a B-.

Last year T&T re­ceived a score of 65.76 and was ranked 98.

While in 2019 our grade was 67.6 and we were ranked 85.

SDGs are a col­lec­tion of 17 in­ter­linked glob­al goals de­signed to be a “blue­print to achieve a bet­ter and more sus­tain­able fu­ture for all”.

The SDGs were set up in 2015 by the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and are in­tend­ed to be achieved by the year 2030.

The 17 SDGs are: (1) No Pover­ty, (2) Ze­ro Hunger, (3) Good Health and Well-be­ing, (4) Qual­i­ty Ed­u­ca­tion, (5) Gen­der Equal­i­ty, (6) Clean Wa­ter and San­i­ta­tion, (7) Af­ford­able and Clean En­er­gy, (8) De­cent Work and Eco­nom­ic Growth, (9) In­dus­try, In­no­va­tion and In­fra­struc­ture, (10) Re­duc­ing In­equal­i­ty,(11) Sus­tain­able Cities and Com­mu­ni­ties, (12) Re­spon­si­ble Con­sump­tion and Pro­duc­tion, (13) Cli­mate Ac­tion, (14) Life Be­low Wa­ter, (15) Life on Land, (16) Peace, Jus­tice, and Strong In­sti­tu­tions, and (17) Part­ner­ships for the Goals.

T&T was deemed to have “ma­jor chal­lenges re­main­ing” and “sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges re­main­ing “ in all but four of the SDGs.

SDG 1 “No Pover­ty” was the on­ly one T&T was said to have achieved.

While “Qual­i­ty Ed­u­ca­tion” and “Af­ford­able and Clean en­er­gy” were said to have “chal­lenges re­main­ing”.

And there was not enough da­ta to make an as­sess­ment about “Re­duced In­equal­i­ties,” the re­port stat­ed.

While T&T was un­able to make the top 100 this year, Cu­ba was the high­est-ranked Caribbean coun­try plac­ing 49.

Ja­maica placed 81, mak­ing it the high­est-ranked Cari­com mem­ber state. And, Bar­ba­dos, 83, was on­ly two spots be­hind Ja­maica.

Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos were the on­ly two Cari­com coun­tries to see an im­prove­ment in their over­all score com­pared to last year’s re­sults. Haiti ranked 150.

Oth­er Cari­com coun­tries such as An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, St Lu­cia, and Grena­da, like many Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) were un­ranked due to in­suf­fi­cient da­ta.

The Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Re­port 2021: The Decade of Ac­tion for the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals was vir­tu­al­ly launched on Mon­day.

“The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is a set­back for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment every­where. For the first time since the adop­tion of the SDGs in 2015, the glob­al av­er­age SDG In­dex score for 2020 has de­creased from the pre­vi­ous year: a de­cline dri­ven to a large ex­tent by in­creased pover­ty rates and un­em­ploy­ment fol­low­ing the out­break of the COVID‑19 pan­dem­ic,” the re­port stat­ed.

“The de­cline in SDG per­for­mance glob­al­ly is like­ly un­der­es­ti­mat­ed in this year’s re­port, with many in­di­ca­tors for 2020 not yet avail­able due to time lags in in­ter­na­tion­al sta­tis­tics. The pan­dem­ic has im­pact­ed all three di­men­sions of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment: eco­nom­ic, so­cial, and en­vi­ron­men­tal,” it stat­ed.

The re­port stat­ed that the high­est pri­or­i­ty of every gov­ern­ment must re­main “the sup­pres­sion of the pan­dem­ic, through non-phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­ter­ven­tions and glob­al ac­cess to vac­cines.”

“There can be no sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment and eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery while the pan­dem­ic is rag­ing,” it stat­ed.

The re­port stat­ed that while the pan­dem­ic is a set­back for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, the SDGs along with the 2030 Agen­da and the Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment pro­vide the right com­pass for “build­ing for­ward bet­ter”.

“Glob­al chal­lenges, in­clud­ing pan­demics but al­so cli­mate change and the bio­di­ver­si­ty cri­sis, re­quire a strong mul­ti­lat­er­al sys­tem. Dam­ages to ecosys­tems and na­ture may lead to the emer­gence of oth­er zoonot­ic dis­eases and pathogens; pos­si­bly with a much high­er case fa­tal­i­ty rate next time,” it warned.

“Cli­mate change has al­ready led to a sharp rise in nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, in­clud­ing droughts, ty­phoons, the im­pact of ris­ing sea lev­els, and heat waves. The dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion has moved many sup­ply chains on­line but al­so in­creased the risk of wide­spread cy­ber­at­tacks. No coun­try can sin­gle­hand­ed­ly pre­vent, re­spond, and re­cov­er from these glob­al shocks,” the re­port stat­ed.

The re­port stat­ed that now more than ever, the mul­ti­lat­er­al sys­tem must be sup­port­ed to work ef­fec­tive­ly.

“Strength­en­ing pre­pared­ness, co­or­di­nat­ed re­spons­es, and re­silience to crit­i­cal risks are key to sup­port­ing the Decade of Ac­tion for the SDGs launched by the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al in 2019,” it stat­ed.

This year’s SDG In­dex was topped by three Nordic coun­tries––Fin­land, Swe­den, and Den­mark.

The re­port stat­ed that even these coun­tries face ma­jor chal­lenges in achiev­ing sev­er­al SDGs.

“The 2021 In­ter­na­tion­al Spillover In­dex in­clud­ed in this re­port un­der­lines how rich coun­tries can gen­er­ate neg­a­tive so­cioe­co­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal spillovers, in­clud­ing through un­sus­tain­able trade and sup­ply chains.

“Tax havens and prof­it shift­ing in many rich coun­tries un­der­mine oth­er coun­tries’ abil­i­ty to mo­bilise need­ed fi­nan­cial re­sources to achieve the SDGs. Var­i­ous types of glob­al tax re­forms could sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease gov­ern­ment rev­enue in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries,” it stat­ed.

The re­port stat­ed that the pan­dem­ic had un­der­lined the need to ac­cel­er­ate progress to­wards uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age and uni­ver­sal ac­cess to key in­fra­struc­ture, es­pe­cial­ly dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture.

“The COVID-19 cri­sis has made it very clear that coun­tries equipped with ef­fec­tive so­cial pro­tec­tion sys­tems and uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age are best equipped to re­spond to such crises. This is al­so less cost­ly, and it is pre­cise­ly for this rea­son that the SDGs call for coun­tries to strength­en their so­cial safe­ty nets and move to­wards uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age for key med­ical ser­vices,” it stat­ed.

“Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies have played a crit­i­cal role in sus­tain­ing so­cial ser­vices, pay­ments, school­ing, and health care dur­ing the lock­downs, and in en­abling work­ing from home to be ef­fec­tive for many oc­cu­pa­tions. The im­por­tance of dig­i­tal ap­pli­ca­tions un­der­scores the vi­tal im­por­tance of uni­ver­sal ac­cess to broad­band ser­vices as key to so­cial in­clu­sion, eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty, and pub­lic health,” the re­port stat­ed.

—Joel Julien