How Covid-19 rolled back SDGs gains
By Milliam.Murigi, August 11, 2023The Covid-19 pandemic caused major setbacks in efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly reducing poverty levels.
This was revealed yesterday in Nairobi during a media forum to present feedback from the high-level political forum 2023 as well as to present SDGs country position papers.
“Kenya had made significant progress in reducing poverty, however, the Covid-19 pandemic caused setbacks eroding the gains that had been made,”said Robert Nyongesa, an official of the Sustainable Development Goals Coordination Directorate, at the Department for Economic Planning.
Nyongesa said the poverty index, which had decreased from 36.1 per cent in 2015/16 to 33.6 per cent in 2019, sharply rose to 45.1 per cent in 2020 due to the pandemic’s impact.
The Covid-19 crisis pushed 2.5 per cent of the population into poverty. Globally, it wiped out more than four years of progress on poverty eradication and pushed 93 million more people into extreme poverty in 2020.
Despite the challenges, the poverty rate decreased to 38.6 per cent in 2021. Despite this progress, disparities between urban and rural areas persist.
In 2021, rural areas had a higher poverty rate of 40.7 per cent, compared to urban areas’ 34.1 per cent.
“Key challenges contributing to the ongoing poverty include rural-urban disparities, gender-based disparities, the impact of climate change, high population growth, and issues related to landlessness and insecure land tenure,”he said.
Livelihoods
According Senior Programmes Officer for SDGs at the Council of Governors Ken Oluoch, the pandemic not only eroded gains made in reducing poverty but affected almost all sectors of the economy, including tourism, trade, manufacturing, micro and small enterprises, transport and education.
Many Kenyans lost lives and means of livelihoods, an impact which is still being felt two years later.
Counties have reported slowing down of SDG implementation and in some cases, the general development trajectory has experienced reversal of development gains made due to Covid-19’s negative impact.
“Covid-19 remains the most disruptive factor due to the adverse socio-economic effects of the pandemic itself, compounded by the measures employed to contain its spread across the country,”said Oluoch.