The Institute for Socio-Economic Studies (Inesc) presented, alongside civil society partner organizations, an analysis of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in Brazil during the parallel events of the United Nations High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on 2030 Agenda in New York.
On July 17 the organizations presented the Spotlight 2019 report, one of the most comprehensive and independent assessment of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Inesc contributed with the analysis of the situation in Brazil. Text of Ana Cernov, a human rights activist, Iara Pietricovisky, Inesc’s co-director, and Nathalie Beghin, coordinator of Inesc’s policy team, shows the negative results of fiscal austerity measures compromising the viability of the goals. The authors highlighted that “nothing prepared civil society for the kind of setback that is undergoing since the new government took office in January 2019.”
Cutbacks in education, the consequences of the labor reform, the increase of child labor and social inequality, and threats to environmental protection systems are topics addressed in the text. “Not only Jair Bolsonaro, his cabinet and allies are feeding the anti-rightist and antidemocratic discourses that elected him, but also the path to the destruction of human rights achieved through mobilization and engagement with civil society,” the report warns. Read the text in English here.
Inesc also contributed to a detailed analysis by Cleo Manhas, policy adviser, on the educational goal (SDG 4), which reveals how the Constitutional Amendment, known as “the Ceiling of Expenditure” (CA 95), left a lot of children out of school, mainly in the most vulnerable regions. Available in English here.
“The new government, despite its previous commitment, will not submit a National Voluntary Report on this HLPF, which makes this effort of civil society organizations even more relevant,” said Iara Pietricovisky. “Now, in addition to the lack of funding to achieve internationally agreed goals, we are facing an even greater problem: the destruction of our institutions,” he concluded. The co-director of Inesc will participate in other agendas of the Forum to contribute to the analysis and monitoring of SDGs also representing Forus International and Abong.
About the 2030 Agenda
In 2015, Heads of States, including Brazil, meeting at United Nations Headquarters, decided on the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, with 17 Sustainable Development Goals, in 169 targets, aimed at the eradication of extreme poverty, the fight against inequality and the injustice and containment of climate change.
About the Spotlight Report
The Spotlight Report is published by the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Development Alternatives Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Global Policy Forum (GPF), Public Services International (PSI), Social Watch, Society for International Development (SID), and Third World Network (TWN), supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
It was presented in New York at the HLPF side event titled “How can ODS thrive in adverse political contexts?”
You will find the report here: https://www.2030spotlight.org/en
