United Nations Economic and Social Council

(ECOSOC)

Topic: Covid effects on the United Nations 2030 agenda.

Moderator: Julián Thomas.

Secretariat: Karla Cazarín.

Delegates,
We would like to welcome you to this new edition of NICMUN. Looking for the global
solutions our world needs is not an easy task. Humans have always maintained
conflictive relationships between groups with different ideologies, and it is important to
understand that fighting is not the best way to build ourselves a future. The main
objective of the world nowadays is to find peace, to establish this collective emotion we
need international cooperation, construct a renewed era ruled by the values and
enriched knowledge you can learn in the next three weeks. We are willing to make this
experience comfortable and interesting for you. It is our pleasure to have you on our
committee, we wish you the best and hope you can have a joyful experience. It is time to
look for the change humanity has tried before, it is in our turn to be part of it.
- Julián Thomas Moreno

Description of the Committee:

The Economic and Social Council is at the heart

of the United Nations system to advance the
three dimensions of sustainable economic ,
social, and environmental development. It is the
central platform for fostering debate and
innovative thinking, forging consensus on ways
forward, and coordinating efforts to achieve
internationally agreed goals. It is also
responsible for the follow-up to major UN
conferences and summits.

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ECOSOC is dedicated to sustainable development, providing overall guidance and
coordination. The entities include regional economic and social commissions, functional
commissions facilitating intergovernmental discussions of major global issues, and
specialized agencies, programmes and funds at work around the world to translate
development commitments into real changes in people’s lives.

ECOSOC is a gateway for UN partnership and participation by the rest of the world. It
offers a unique global meeting point for productive dialogues among policymakers,
parliamentarians, academics, foundations, and businesses.

Introduction of the Topic:

The Sustainable Development Goals are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect
the planet and improve the lives and prospects for everyone, everywhere. The 17 Goals
were adopted by all UN Member States in 2015, as part of the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development which set out a 15-year plan to achieve the Goals.

Sustainable development is the international community’s most urgent priority, and the
core aim of the post-2015 development agenda. ECOSOC operates at the center of the
UN system’s work on all three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social, and
environmental. It is the unifying platform for integration, action on sustainable
development. As the umbrella for the UN’s functional and regional commissions, and
operational and specialized agencies, it links the setting of global norms with their
implementation.

The international community has had a plan in place. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development was designed to prevent, attack, and solve the very system failures,
inequalities, and disparities that the global COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare.
Inadequate health systems, unequal wealth distribution, hunger, the climate crisis, and
gender gaps led to the universal adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
and the embrace of ‘leaving no one behind’ principle.

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Background Information of the Topic:

National societies and the global community were broadly committed to reaching the
SDGs prior to the pandemic. In the face of the pandemic, the next phase of UNDP’s
(committee linked to ECOSOC) COVID-19 crisis response is designed to help look
towards 2030. Making choices and managing complexity and uncertainty in four main
areas: Governance (building a new social structure), Social protection (disappearing
inequalities), Green economy (rebalancing nature, climate and economy), and Digital
innovation (increasing the speed and scale solution).

The pandemic has made it shockingly clear that the world is nowhere near achieving the
2030 Agenda’s goals and targets. If anything, the effects of COVID-19 have set many
countries back, erasing hard-won gains. For the first time in two decades, poverty is
likely to significantly increase as millions of people slip back down the economic ladder,
reported by the World Bank Group this year.

The next phase of our COVID-19 response is to make nations contribute multilaterally,
looking towards 2030 and the main approaches the world needs to to lead the UN's
socio-economic response.

Believing the latter question must be unpacked—and that delivering on the 2030
Agenda in a post-COVID period requires more emphasis on three key enablers:
innovation, collaboration, and integration. As the three major paradigm shifts that
underpin the SDGs, these approaches and actions could serve as powerful levers to the
current pandemic recovery.

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Under a “COVID Baseline” scenario, the pandemic could raise the number of people living in
extreme poverty by 44 million in 2030. Uncertainties are multiple and under a “High Damage”
scenario, the world could see 251 million people driven into extreme poverty because of the
pandemic, bringing the total number to 1 billion by 2030. Research also shows that the SDG
plan has the potential to exceed the development trajectory the world had on before the
pandemic, taking into account COVID-19 impacts. Meaning that action has to be taken,
worldwide, nations are still on time.

If we take the aspect of integration, many institutions that are mandated to deliver
outcomes on a few specific SDGs would hugely benefit from being more aligned with all
the other goals. If the goals are integrated and universal, so must be the policies,
programmes, systems, and governance structures that are set to address them.

International Actions:

The United Nations had established 17 goals to ensure a future for the world. It is the
country's turn to apply the necessary strategies to achieve this plan. Groundbreaking

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digital solutions in Colombia helped reach over 2 million people with a new social
protection scheme in a few weeks. Energy pricing reforms appear imminent to increase
fiscal space. And the burden on women to carry out unpaid domestic work during
lockdown has sparked calls for investments in the care economy, similar to those
already existing in Uruguay.

The United Nations Development Program, assesses the impact of three different
COVID-19 scenarios on the SDGs, capturing the multidimensional effects of the
pandemic over the next decades. The world needs to keep a special focus on countries
with low and medium levels of human development in support of the 2030 Agenda
pledge of ‘Leave No One Behind’. The studies performed by the United Nations starting
2021 shows how governments can make choices today that have the greatest potential to
boost progress in the future, within planetary boundaries. This type of analysis can
empower governments to turn COVID-19 from a short-term crisis into an opportunity
for transformation towards sustainable development in the long-term.

Achieving the SDGs will depend on the collective response over 2021 and 2022; whether
the COVID-19 crisis serves as a much-needed wake-up call that incentivizes a decade of
truly transformative action that delivers for people and the planet is still to be seen.
Countries in special situations as well as middle-income countries, would require an
immediate approach that takes into account their needs and priorities. The 2030
Agenda and its 17 SDGs is still the best option available for a sustainable and inclusive
recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, to improve everyone's lives and transform our
world for the better.

Questions to answer in your position paper:

1. Where do we stand on the SDGs given the dramatic impacts of COVID-19?

2. What can we learn from the different countries' experience in responding to the
COVID-19 pandemic?

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 3. What mix of policies have been more effective in addressing COVID-19’s impacts
while putting countries back on track to realize the SDGs?
4. What are immediate actions that countries should consider addressing the
socio-economic impact of the pandemic on the most vulnerable?
5. How will the countries achieve multilateral collaboration and SDGs relevance in
the future?

Recommendations to do Resolution Paper:

1. Find solutions that fit all the previous laws.

2. Use proper language and express your delegation’s ideas in an extended way.
3. Use preambulatory and operative phrases.
4. Seek for sponsors to support your delegation’s solutions.
5. Consider Non-governmental Organizations (NGO’s) to support your solutions.
6. Always maintain your country's position and abstain from contradicting yourself.
7. Specify the worldwide planification the committee reached and make it realistic.
Operative Phrases:

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Preambulatory Phrases:

Bibliography:

1) Anonymous. (2020). United Nations. 75th Economic and Social Council: About Us.

https://www.un.org/ecosoc/en/about-us

2) Anonymous. (2020). United Nations. 75th Economic and Social Council: Sustainable

Development. https://www.un.org/ecosoc/en/sustainable-development

3) Ribakova, Lidiya. (December 2020). For International Futures: UNDP. Assessing impact of

COVID-19 on the Sustainable Development Goals.

https://sdgintegration.undp.org/sites/default/files/Flagship_1.pdf

4) Brown, Patrick. (6 July 2021). United Nations. Sustainable development report shows

devastating impact of COVID, ahead of ‘critical’ new phase.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/07/1095362

5) SDG lab. (3 June 2021). IISD. The World Has a Plan to Get Out of COVID-19: It’s Called the

2030

Agenda.https://sdg.iisd.org/commentary/guest-articles/the-world-has-a-plan-to-get-out-of-co

vid-19-its-called-the-2030-agenda/

6) Anonymous. (No date). UNDP. COVID-19 and the SDGs

https://feature.undp.org/covid-19-and-the-sdgs/

Background Paper of the Economic and Social Council NICMUN 2020 Page 7
 7) Thompson, Laura. (No date). IOM. How will COVID affect the achievement of the 2030 Agenda?

https://rosanjose.iom.int/site/en/blog/how-will-covid-19-affect-achievement-goals-2030-agen

da

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