Karin Costa Vazquez: SDGs as bridges for reconstruction and transformation of Brazil
December 27 , 2022
By Karin Costa Vazquez, CCG Non-Resident Senior Fellow.
The cycle of public policies that begins in January 2023 opens an opportunity to accelerate sustainable development and strategic repositioning of Brazil in the world. To this end, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emerge as an important conceptual framework to put the country back on track for commitments under the 2030 Agenda.
The result of a process initiated at Rio+20 in 2012 and which had Brazil as the protagonist for its approval in 2015, the Agenda 2030 establishes 17 SDGs and their respective 169 goals, directly influencing the daily life of the population on urgent issues such as education, access to water and sanitation, employment, public security, and access to credit.
Public policies around the world have been refocused on meeting the SDGs. The SDGs will also be highlighted in the Indian G20 presidency in 2023, the same year that UN member countries will assess the state of compliance with the 2030 Agenda and define initiatives to accelerate it.
In Brazil, compliance with the SDGs is seriously compromised. The base study of the ABDE Plan 2030, which will be published in Tempo do Mundo journal and released on December 12 at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), points out that seven ODS have regressed or are not on the path to compliance by 2030, eight are stagnant and only one has advanced or has already been fulfilled. The most critical SDGs are poverty eradication (SDG 1), the promotion of decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), the reduction of inequalities (SDG 10), and peace, justice and effective institutions (SDG 16).
Stage of implementation of the SDGs in Brazil
Source: Vazquez, K.C. et al. 2022. Cinco missões para o desenvolvimento transformador do Brasil: metodologia e resultados do estudo-base do Plano ABDE 2030 de Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Revista Tempo do Mundo, 2022.
* Each indicator received a score of zero to five according to its implementation stage. The simple average for each ODS was then calculated. The green circle represents SDGs with an average greater than 4 (advanced or fulfilled); yellow circles represent the SDGs with an average between 2 and 4 (stagnant); and the circles in red represent the SDGs with an average between 0 and 2 (regressed or will not be fulfilled).
Among the crucial targets that have not been met is the proportion of the population living below the national poverty line, which increased from 10.97% to 16.09% between 2019 and 2021. Gross R&D expenditure in relation to GDP is 1.14%, well below the average of 2.6% of OECD countries and other middle-income countries such as China (2.11%), reflecting the loss of productive capacity of the Brazilian economy.
The national governance for the SDGs began to be structured in the year following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda with the establishment of the National SDGs Commission (CNODS). Comprised of 16 representatives from the three spheres of government and civil society, the commission had the mandate to promote the 2030 Agenda in Brazil.
This governance was dismantled in 2019 with the extinction of CNODS and the emptying of the agenda in the Secretariat of Government of the Presidency of the Republic. In 2021, the Joint Parliamentary Front to Support the SDGs proposed the establishment of the Policy for the Promotion of the Agenda 2030, but the bill is still awaiting a vote in the House of Representatives.
It is necessary to structure a national governance mechanism for the SDGs with a clear role not only for public agencies and civil society, but also for the private sector and for financial development institutions in the dissemination, financing and monitoring of the 2030 Agenda in Brazil.
The first step would be to establish a Policy to Promote the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and recreate CNODS with a mandate in line with key international debates and trends and with a structure that favors the mobilization and coordination of different actors inside and outside the government already in the first six months of 2023.
The second step would be to promote the better alignment of the 2030 Agenda and the investments of the National Development System (SNF) with the cycle of planning, budgeting and management of public policies. Multilateral development banks, ABDE and SNF, formed by development banks, commercial banks with development portfolio, cooperative banks, development agencies, with their capacity and technical knowledge, have enormous potential to leverage the sustainable development agenda.
The SNF is central to the promotion of the SDGS in Brazil, financing public policies, acting in an anticyclical manner, fostering strategic sectors, contributing to the structuring of projects and inducing the formulation of policies for development. In addition, this action can have an even greater impact as it articulates with the cycle of public policies.
To this end, it is crucial to integrate financing strategies for sustainable development into the Multiannual Plan 2025-2027, the Budget Guidelines Act and the Annual Budget Law. This would enable Brazil to create a stable and predictable flow for fostering institutions, in line with international best practices.
The third step would be to relaunch the National Voluntary Report on SDG implementation. The report would make it possible to evaluate compliance with the 2030 Agenda, measure what needs to be done, inform Brazil’s international activities, and reaffirm the country’s commitment to multilateralism. Since 2017 the Brazilian government has not reported compliance with the SDDs.
Currently, less than half of the goals and indicators of the 2030 Agenda internalized by Brazil are measured. Among them, the minority has continuous statistical series, updated and disaggregated by regions and groups of greater social vulnerability. There are no common classifications, measurements and monitoring for the financing of the SDGs by the SNF, making it difficult to exchange information between and from financial development institutions with public entities.
Once implemented, this set of actions would support the identification and financing of public policies in priority areas for the country, besides being an important exercise of accountability to Brazilian society. Monitoring the 2030 Agenda can also help rescue Brazil’s leading role in the debate on sustainable development, expanding the voice of developing countries in international for a such as the G20 and BRICS – which the country will host in 2024.
Advancing compliance with the SDGs means more quality of life for the population, a more productive and efficient economy, a more protected and stable environment, and a more sustainable future for the planet. It is urgent to resume this agenda to guide the process of reconstruction and transformation of Brazil.
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Karin Costa Vazquez is Professor at the O.P. Jindal Global University, researcher at Fudan University and non-resident senior fellow at the think-tank Center for China and Globalization. Luma Ramos is a researcher at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. Cristina Reis is professor at the Center for Engineering, Modeling and Applied Social Sciences of the Federal University of ABC, Fernanda Cimini is professor at Cedeplar/UFMG. João Prates Romero is professor at the Center for Development and Regional Planning of the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
