Events
Thematic Session: Protecting and advancing human wellbeing and ending poverty
Tue 30 Jun 2020, 1.08 pm — Wed 03 Feb 2021, 12.08 pm
Online
Background
Co-conveners: DESA, UNDP, UNFPA, UNESCO, WHO.
External experts listed on this page and the following United Nations entities have also contributed to the workstream: ECLAC, ESCWA, FAO, IFAD, IOM, ITC, OHCHR, OSAA, UNDRR, UNEP, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNODC, WFP, WMO.
Advancing human well-being is at the heart of sustainable development. It is about upholding human rights, eradicating poverty and deprivations across multiple dimensions, closing opportunity gaps and expanding capabilities – including those needed to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences as well as ensuring gender equality. Protecting the well-being of all people is also about safeguarding the natural environment on which everyone depends, including future generations, and tapping into synergies across the SDGs. COVID-19 has tragically laid bare shortfalls in many areas and threatens to push millions of people back into poverty. Pandemic response efforts and long-term development plans must work to eliminate poverty and hunger; reduce inequalities in opportunities; ensure access to quality health care and reduce exposure to disease; increase access to quality education and other services; and address persistent gender inequality. All of this is demonstrably possible, but recovering and building back better will require cooperation, collaboration and dialogue among multiple stakeholders to ensure no one is left behind, including the most vulnerable.
Guiding questions:
- What are some promising actions to support progress toward advancing human well-being that generate synergies across Sustainable Development Goals and Targets? Are there tradeoffs from these actions and if so, how can they be mitigated?
- What are the most critical interventions and partnerships needed over the next 2 years, 5 years, 10 years to protect and advance human well-being and end poverty?
- Which groups are especially vulnerable to poverty and lack access to capability enhancing services?
- What are ways to ensure that actions leave no one behind? How might COVID-19 facilitate or complicate efforts to reduce vulnerabilities among marginalized groups?
- Are there examples of successful partnerships and initiatives for advancing human well-being? Can these be scaled up or adjusted to fit other contexts?
- How can science and technology support well-being in the context of COVID-19 and in the future?