India, Brazil, and other developing nations have called out richer countries for “cherry-picking” environmental concerns over other issues in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an official who was part of the Indian delegation at the G20 Development Ministers’ meeting in Varanasi has told Sputnik.
“Developed countries have this tendency to put more focus on the environmental issue. This is what India, Brazil and other developing countries noted at the meeting,” stated Ashish Kumar Sinha, a joint secretary at the G20 Secretariat under India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
“Within the sustainable development goals, which comprises social, environmental and developmental aspects, we can’t do this sort of cherry-picking,” he added.
The remarks come as low and middle-income nations across Asia, Africa, and South America grapple with problems of food and energy security, debt distress, and rising poverty levels.
Addressing the opening session of the G20 meeting earlier in the day, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar also blasted “fragmentation” in international priorities while implementing the SDGs.
“Unfortunately, since its adoption in 2015, not only have we seen the political momentum [of the SDG agenda] wither. But we have also witnessed fragmentation in international priorities wherein some goals are deemed more important than others. Such cherry-picking is not in our collective interest,” the Indian foreign minister told the G20 meeting.
Jaishankar, however, didn't name any country in his remarks.
He said that the universal realization of SDGs would only be possible if it were implemented as a “comprehensive agenda”.
According to the United Nations (UN), only 12 percent of the 140 SDG targets are on course to meet the 2030 deadline.
Progress on nearly a third of the SDGs has either remained unchanged or even fallen below 2015 levels, as per UN estimates.
G20 Ministers Discuss Gaps in SDG Implementation
Sinha said that the gap in the implementation of the SDGs constituted a major area of focus at the G20 meeting.
“Everyone is aware of the situation. Everyone is aware of the big gap in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With this rate, where we will be in 2030, how big a gap will remain in the number of people being below the poverty line, the number of people not having access to basic necessities such as sanitation and clean drinking water,” Sinha highlighted.
He said that India, as G20 rotating president, was trying to forge a consensus among the grouping to expedite progress on the implementation of the SDGs.
As per the UN, the annual SDG funding gap has soared from $2.5 trillion before the COVID pandemic to over $4 trillion last year.