The coronavirus is a siren for the health related sustainable development goals

Pandemic events such as COVID-19 are reminders of the need for collective investments in resilient systems that reach beyond health care. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide both the aspiration and a unifying framework for these investments. When the first cycle of the SDGs drew to a close last fall, evaluation panels noted bright spots such as 

improvements in child health and education. Yet, experts conceded that gaps in 

measurement, 

investment, and shared commitment hampered progress. Then COVID-19 struck. The pandemic threatens to slow the progress on SDGs even further, combining the economic shock of a depression with rising 

death tolls in countries at every level of development.

Many of the priorities of 

SDG3 (good health and well-being) are relevant for the surge response and recovery from COVID-19. This is why the 

U.N. has called the pandemic “an opportunity for the human family to act in solidarity” to achieve the SDGs. So the SDGs actually provide the agenda for a sustainable global response to COVID-19—sustainable in that the response to this emergency should not lead to a neglect of the critical elements for equitable, affordable health care for all. In this blog post, we outline four opportunities for global health policy to renew the world’s commitment to the SDGs.