 Good morning and good afternoon to everyone who is joining us. I see our attendees are starting to join Including some some friends of SDSN Some colleagues. So we're gonna get started in just a minute or two as we wait for our attendees to to start to join All right, we'll give it just one more minute All right, we're gonna go ahead and get started Thank you so much for joining us for the launch of the 2020 Africa SDG index and dashboards report My name is Eve DeLamoth Karuby. I am a senior manager at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network That's UN SDSN Which are the co-authors of this report along with the SDG Center for Africa Um and just to give you a quick overview of our Webinar agenda, we're going to start with a short video presenting some of the highlights of this year's report I'll then give a little bit more of a detailed presentation about the content of the report and some of the key findings And then we will have a panel discussion to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic On the SDGs and this principle of leaving no one behind in Africa I am um, we are all actually very privileged today um to have a truly extraordinary panel of um experienced women leaders from across the continent We have Maurice Atoke from Nigeria We have Judith Kaulam from Zimbabwe and Dr. Miriam Were from Kenya who will be joining us for a discussion And then of course we will leave some time for question and answers at the end Of the hour and a half we have together today I'm going to ask my co-host Cheyenne to launch a video Which will give some of the highlights of the report just to get started Thanks very much Cheyenne. All right. I see we have Some attendees who might have raised hands. We're going to save questions for For the end But if you do have questions that come up either during the presentation or the discussion Feel free to pop those in the chat And we'll be keeping an eye on the chat and use those those questions as the basis also for our Q&A session So i'm going to go back to Sharing my screen. All right. So as I said, we are presenting first the The report and its findings. So for those of you who might not be as familiar With the sdsn Just a quick word. We are an independent Organization operating under the auspices of the un secretary general since 2012 Um at the beginning our mandate was to support the crafting and creation of what became the sdgs And in 2015 our mandate was renewed to support their implementation We are led and directed by professor jeffrey sacks of columbia university And our mission is to mobilize scientific and technical expertise from mainly academia and other knowledge institutions like civil society and the private sector really focusing on problem solving for sustainable development Our priorities are articulated Around three main areas of work. The first is policy analysis. Uh, this report falls under that category We also have an online university called the sdg academy Which offers upwards of 30 completely free massive open online courses on all topics of sustainable development And finally we also Are developing a global network of knowledge institutions to date. We have about 1,300 member universities and research institutes around the world Organized at the national and regional level to work together to localize the goals And identify solutions and advise their governments at the national and regional level on pathways to achieve the goals Getting to The report itself You should know that we also publish a global sdg index and dash reports report, which is called the sustainable development report We've been publishing this report annually since 2016 and the africa report. We've been publishing since 2018 so this is our third annual report that we developed in partnership with the sdg center for africa This year's report has an overarching theme of leave no one behind And we added a chapter on the impact of the cove 19 pandemic In addition, we've updated our survey on government implementation efforts And the report also includes four case studies on leave no one behind This year these case studies were all Written by partner organizations such as the mo ebraheem foundation And finally just a word on the purpose of this report This report is really A high-level snapshot of the situation of the sdgs in africa It can help to identify priorities and understand challenges Track progress and help parties to ensure accountability and also identify gaps to achieve the sdgs by 2030 We are using internationally comparable data because we're we're also comparing countries between themselves To allow us to track progress and see how countries at the same sort of socio-economic level are faring across these different Indicators and goals So a quick snapshot of the analysis that we're presenting in this year's report As I said the theme of this report is leaving no one behind and we've identified eight factors which are really key and Ultimately hindering the ability of african countries to fulfill this promise to leave no one behind I'm just going to give a very quick overview of those eight factors. One of them Is what we call a demographic imbalance Due to really rapid population growth and high fertility rates Another is governance in particular ineffective governments or unaccountable and unresponsive institutions Another factor is data gaps, which is essentially weak statistical systems Which are really hindering the ability to track Whether marginalized groups are progressing sufficiently And on track with the rest of the country Inequality and discrimination Whether these are embedded in laws or policies Or societal norms that cause exclusion and bias These really hinder the ability for all all Population within a country to achieve the goals Over on the right side, you'll see we have shocks and fragility And so of course We're we're experiencing a major shock, which is the COVID-19 pandemic But we also have to keep in mind extreme weather events like cyclone Cyclones and And other extreme weather events And other extreme weather events That particularly can have a negative effect on vulnerable groups What we call socioeconomic status Has to do with really reaching those who are furthest behind And this also touches on this this question of inequality and discrimination within households On geographical location, this has to do primarily with The urban rural divide And we really do see an uneven pace of progress between urban and rural populations And the fact is that rural populations are more disadvantaged And Finally, we've identified this question of limited resources So the limited ability to mobilize domestic resources Um The Unfulfilled promises of the Addis Ababa action agenda on financing for development And really the the global sort of economic contraction and the fact that Many donor countries are continuing not to fulfill their promises To support developing countries in achieving the goals As I said, we've done a little bit more of an analysis on this question Of the COVID-19 pandemic Through the lens of leaving no one behind And in fact, you know, while there are some immediate impacts, very obvious ones For example on goal three on health and well-being In fact, we found that there are Effects on every single one of the 17 SDGs So for example on goal one on poverty We've seen estimates that up to 23 million more people could be pushed into extreme poverty due to the pandemic On goal two zero hunger up to 73 million Africans are forecast to be food insecure due to the pandemic It's not all negative On The environmental goals goal 13 climate action We did during the the main period of lockdown in the first part of the year Saw a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions On goal 14, we also saw reduced fishing and on goal 15 Overall reduced pressures on the environment However, these conclusions were also at the time of writing Earlier in the year and it seems that as our pace of life Ticks back up Unfortunately, these small gains that were made are are quickly being erased Another part of the report I mentioned is what we call our government implementation efforts Survey So we do analyze the implementation policies of all 54 African countries And our review is then sent to all country governments and experts To validate our responses this year. We got 34 responses from countries And our findings are that African countries have really done good work on endorsing the SDGs on and on developing national strategies In fact, only three countries seem to not have very clear national strategies to implement the goals And in addition, almost all countries have identified A coordinating unit within government that is responsible for overseeing the implementation On the negative side, unfortunately There hasn't been sufficient consideration for the financial needs and the funding sources So almost all of our Different country contacts and country experts Said that there was really a lack of financial needs, but at the same time there hasn't been really Careful costing and budgetary assessments of actually how much is needed to achieve each goal in each country On the whole of government engagement, we also found that Parliaments and legislative engagement generally is quite low. Very few countries have Had debates in parliament on the SDGs or have standing committees Where the SDGs are regularly addressed In terms of progress compared to these survey we did in previous years stakeholder engagement has improved But it does remain insufficient and more is needed And as I said lack of resources has really been flagged as a challenge And also lack of data has been really flagged as a as a big challenge that countries face Just to give a little bit more detail on on a couple of these points On awareness raising here what you see on this graph The lighter colored blue is the survey result from 2019 and the darker blue is the survey result from 2020 On awareness raising You'll see that almost half of half the countries are doing Some type of awareness raising the most common form of that is like a public awareness campaign and that can take lots of different forms And interestingly we see this year a really a jump on partnerships with media To raise awareness About the goals. That's almost a 10 percentage point difference year on year And on stakeholder engagement overall meetings with interest groups Is the the main mechanism for engagement and we've also seen quite Quite a lot of progress on that As well as on the use of focus groups and expert panels On the main implementation challenges The lack of adequate dedicated financial resources Really emerged as the number one Challenge that people identified Followed rather closely by the lack of adequate data So this includes The the coverage of the data the quality of the data And even the availability of the indicators as i'm sure many of you know, we have Over 240 official indicators and very few countries even developed countries Are lacking on this What we saw also really as a significant rise was This commentary about the lack of capacity in government to actually implement the goals Which was an interesting and troubling change to see Compared to the survey that we conducted last year Uh, I'm now going to move To a discussion about actually the results and our findings on the index and dashboards Before I get into the drumroll and reveal our top ranked country this year Just a couple of words about the methodology and the data that we use to reach these conclusions This is a methodology that has been developed over the past couple of years And it has been audited by the european commission's joint research center. This is Recognized as the global experts essentially on this type of composite index And they advised us and really validated the the methodology that we have retained Um, we use a total of 97 indicators in the report 67 of those indicators are retained from the global report and we Use an additional 30 indicators, which are really specific to the africa context And these include some indicators which were informed by the african unions 2063 agenda Um, of course since we are trying to compare countries and track progress We need to make sure that the data we're using are available for the majority of countries So, um, among other cry among other criteria coverage is a very important one And this means that we don't only use official data sources Um, we do also use some non official data sources. These can be academic institutions and others Um, for example, we use a corruption indicator by transparency international. So these are Indicators that are collected annually and rigorously calculated and have strong methodologies behind them as well to inform us And uh, and and serve essentially as proxy indicators since we don't have official indicators on some of these uh topics A couple of words also about the limitations of our analysis Uh, unfortunately due to insufficient data equatorial guinea and the seychelles are not included in this year's index ranking And overall, um, we do have 6.5 of missing values Though this is lower than the missing values that we had in 2019. So we are seeing an improvement in the coverage And unfortunately on some of the data as well, we do have um, some old data points Um from household surveys that may have been conducted for example under the mdgs Um, and so that's unfortunate what we have included in the country profiles is the year for every single data point So we're very transparent, um on uh on the timeliness of this data So drum roll, please. I reveal to you our top 10 ranking for the africa index. We do rank 52 Um countries on this map the darker colored countries are the ones with the higher scores So our score is from zero, which is the worst to 100, which is the best And essentially you can interpret the score as a percentage of sdg achievement So tunisia is our top ranking country with a score of 67.1 And so essentially that lets us say that tunisia is about three quarters of the way to achieving the goals Um, it's important to note that um within the top Three rankings here we have Less than one point of difference. And so these these differences are really not majorly significant These are really small differences between um between these top countries But essentially our our conclusions are similar to the previous years is that north africa overall is performing very well Um as well as a couple of the small island states Uh a quick word also we we do have a trends analysis um across um For for every single indicator for which we have time series data available in this case That's 59 out of the 97 indicators. Unfortunately, we don't have trends available for goals 10 or 12 But I just wanted to familiarize you with this four arrow key that we use So the green arrow is essentially the country's on track or maintaining sdg achievement Um, and it goes down to this red decreasing arrow meaning that the country is moving completely in the wrong direction um And we apply uh the same color scheme the same traffic light score to our dashboard So you'll see here our africa dashboard Unfortunately for 13 out of 17 of the goals not a single african country has actually achieved a green dashboard um According to our analysis of the dashboard the goals that are facing the greatest challenges are sdg three on good health and well-being sdg nine on infrastructure and sdg 16 on peace justice and strong institutions On the trends there's a little bit more nuance interestingly on sdg three which in terms of the dashboard status the current status right now um The majority of countries 76 percent of countries are actually moderately improving on health um This same improvement is also being registered on sdg eight on decent work It should be said though that the data that we're using also predates the pandemic So some of these trends that we've identified Might be and will likely be affected by the pandemic This year for the first time in the africa report. We have also introduced A new leave no one behind index and dashboard So this links to the overarching theme of the report We're all familiar with this principle of leave no one behind This commonly denotes inequalities within each country and this could be inequalities in income and wealth Inequalities in access whether it's access to services or to infrastructure And we also include gender inequalities All of the indicators that we use for this new index are also part of the overall africa index We've just selected a subset of indicators according to a few different categories And the idea is that this index brings out some of these inequalities that are hidden by the average value In the overall index And we can see that essentially in terms of the ranking if you look at the image here The the leave no one behind ranking is the first column and the second column is the index ranking So you can see that essentially the top five countries are more or less the same though not precisely in the same order There are a few notable exceptions though. Some countries are scoring much higher And essentially what this tells us Is that even though their current overall status is challenging They do have less inequalities within their population And on the flip side, there are some countries which you know perform somewhat well on the overall ranking but score a lot lower on the leave no one behind index and Our interpretation of that is that they these countries maybe have a better score overall Due to good performance on some environmental goals But when it comes to social issues and social inequalities, these are our real challenges We do present an overall leave no one behind dashboard But here I'm just going to present the regional version of that dashboard But just to say that overall the start conclusion is that all African countries are really struggling to leave no one behind In fact, there are no green ranking. There are no green Scores anywhere on on any of these On any of these Leave no one behind categories On the regional dashboard We're also seeing pretty poor Current performance the only one that has moderate challenges is income inequality in north Africa Um and unfortunately east and west africa are are tied with the worst performance They have three red categories so on extreme poverty on gender inequality and on access to and quality of services in terms of the trends Unfortunately, again, no region is on track for any of these categories and the dominant trend that we're seeing Is really stagnation Once again, north africa is the region that's performing best As they are Having moderate improvements across all of the categories And i'm going to wrap up this presentation of the report just to share with you One of the country profiles from the report itself. So you get a sense of What what kind of information you'll have access to When you read the report. So this is part of our tunisia country profile Remember that tunisia is the top ranking country this year So in our country profile, we present the index score as well as the leave no one behind score The the ranking and we have this This sort of spider web graph that presents the performance by sdg And then we also have the dashboards that are presented in the country profiles. So here the top dashboard is the current assessment So that's where the country stands with regards to each goal So here we see that the major challenges that tunisia is facing are in gender inequality on gender equality On goal seven on affordable and clean energy and on goal eight on decent work and economic growth And on the dashboard below which presents the trends It's sort of interesting to see on those three goals that are facing the most challenges. In fact, we do see moderate improvements on goals seven and eight And the trends are more troubling across some other goals as well So I invite you all to visit our website sdgin dex.org You can download the report and you can also explore our interactive data portal We have a map there. It allows you to click on different countries and see the performance We'll also have available a summary version of the report, which is about 10 pages And that summary report is also available in french for our francophone colleagues I'm going to wrap up there on the presentation of the 2020 report. Thank you all for your kind attention Again, please have a look at our website and feel free to reach out to me directly for any questions We're now going to move to the discussion portion of this afternoon's launch And I'm really honored and privileged to welcome our three panelists today The first is morise atoki Who this year was named as the ceo of the african business coalition for health known as abc health Her background is in global financial and auditing services She worked at urnstein young and then at price waterhouse cooper nigeria Covering the sdg's sustainability and climate change She is an alumna of both the harvard business school and the london school of business and and finance So welcome morise We also have judith kowlem who's the executive director for the poverty reduction forum trust in zimbabwe She has extensive expertise in the area of poverty gender and human development research She's a graduate of the university of zimbabwe and sits on many international boards including partners for review and the tech network As well as many local NGOs And last but not least We have the dwayen of our panel today professor miriam ware from kenya She is a medical doctor a public health advocate and an educator She is currently serving on the lancet's covet 19 commission This is an interdisciplinary initiative across health business finance and public policy Which is aimed to help speed up global equitable and lasting solutions to the pandemic She is also the former chancellor of moi university in kenya former chairwoman of kenya's national aides control council And the board of am ref which is the african medical and research foundation She's also the recipient of many awards over her illustrious career Please um join me in welcoming this wonderful panel. So i'll invite the panelists to please Turn on their cameras We have morise and professor wary and judith And I just want to say it's such an honor to have Such wonderful strong intelligent women from three different regions of the continent here We have west africa east africa and southern africa represented So thank you all for for joining us today I want to open up and start the discussion I I would be really interested just to hear very briefly from each of you About the current situation in your country with regards to the covet 19 pandemic If whether you're locked down or not freedom of movement that kind of thing And then my second question after a quick answer on that one will be to discuss a little bit more The impact of the pandemic on on the sdgs. So Maybe we can start with you judith Just a a couple of sentences on what the situation is on in zimbabwe Thank you very much if and thank you for having me on this platform Um for zimbabwe with regards the covet 19 we actually had our first case in march And to date with regards to covet 19 We have seven thousand eight hundred and thirty seven confirmed cases We have Six thousand one hundred and twenty two recoveries in the country's experience Two hundred and thirty eight deaths over the period We started with a lockdown a total lockdown at level four In um in may we are now moved down to level two So the economy is beginning to open up and people are beginning to Either work from home or work from their offices, but it's like things are going back to normal slowly Yeah Thank you for that perspective judith. It sounds like zimbabwe was um somehow spared the worst of it Um morris over to yeah, yeah morris over to over to you for uh an update from nigeria Yeah, thank you so much um If uh and thanks judith for that perspective on On zimbabwe so my experience, you know, we we we are two hundred million. So don't get scared when you hear the numbers We we we have a today we have a total confirmed cases of about 58,644 persons Active cases Seven thousand five hundred and forty nine thousand nine hundred and thirty seven and about a thousand one hundred and eleven deaths in total Um, we had a total lockdown in march at about level four But today we're at um About level two with most people returning to work, but if it's still started by um using the mask Keeping the rules and ensuring that uh people are kept safe over Thanks for that update from nigeria Professor wary, can you share uh a quick update on the situation in kenya to give us a sense of Um, how the pandemic has run its course there Thank you very much to you kenya has had an up and down relationship with covid The first lockdown was in march and uh it actually lasted until sometime in july When all the schools were closed and they were not allowed to travel and and so the daily numbers of uh The infected and the dead have also been going up and down Then we went through a period in august where we felt that kids are going down But unfortunately they have also started going up again so right now The country term has been reduced in the sense that we can now stay out until 11 But there is still curfew Uh, they have seen the restrictions on school with our schools are still closed and we are hoping that The traffic institutions will begin opening in october beginning the fifth of october But the primary schools and the high schools are still uncertain. So we are still in the woods but we are We have a very organized the government has a very organized approach to this Under the ministry of health and we believe that We are moving forward thank you so much for for that perspective professor wary and You you you snuck ahead a little bit in in answering because when you touch on this question of school closures This is uh has a huge impact of course on stg achievement when we look at stg4 And also on stg10 where really inequalities are deeply exacerbated by school closures where Families that have the luxury of home computers and good internet access And families that are educated themselves can also maintain a level of educational achievement for their children But those families that are already poor already disadvantaged already marginalized Are are facing now this additional burden of having the children completely out of school and so Maybe not only focusing on stg4 But i'd be interested in in going around the group again to share your perspective on the different ways that the pandemic Is negatively affecting the stg implementation in your country And so maybe if we can go back to professor wary and i'll i'll go in in reverse order this time The performance of stg is in in our country. I'm generally in eastern Africa I think that we are really In a bit of a struggle. We are really struggling Stg1 as you know the poverty issues Is not very well performed all over Africa The stg2 the food Security issue is still a quite a challenge Uh coming from the health sector. I wish i could say that stg3 is much better, but unfortunately it is not um stg4 is dicey So I guess we are Eastern Africa has not done well. You look at Uganda, Tanzania Even Rwanda, Rwanda, I said even Rwanda because I had hoped that The standing of Rwanda would be much better because they seem to be quite organized But our existence is much Different between the different countries and of course South Africa is our Very very Desperate country which needs a lot of help so in general I say that We are happy that we are doing a little better on the climate actual issue Which is linked to The use of environment and soil So what I would like to say is I follow up of some kind On linking the climate action to increased food production and increased health And then because you have to start somewhere And maybe don't say you have to start the climate action area plus the health area and then The school you can't really postpone it because the children are there and I was I was in the village for four months of lockdown and The children were everywhere on the streets on the roads and Looking very desperate So I was not surprised that we had such a high level of clinic pregnancy and so on So we just decided that as a family to establish a tuition for the high school group And that's more than a hundred children And teachers are there but it is a desperate situation Yes, I think so Thank you very much professor wary and it's interesting that you mentioned stg-13 also because This is basically the only goal Where the continent as a whole is performing well And you know, you can argue also that it's a little bit symptomatic of underdevelopment That you don't have as much of the industrialization and pollution as in other countries And I you know, there's hope also that African countries can sort of leapfrog and bypass The same development path that other countries have followed which have led to You know, a lot of environmental degradation and and excessive pollution So thank you for for making that link as well Mori is over to you on on how you see this pandemic negatively affecting stg Implementation it would be interesting as well because I I know In in other interactions that you've had that you have been working with the Nigerian government I'd also be interested to hear if you see The stgs being pushed aside as a priority during the pandemic or if the stgs are still helping to orient long-term policy planning right Thank you so much for that. So, I mean Nigeria's case. Well, I don't know whether Quite a number of other countries have the same circumstances, but Coincidentally year 2020 Particularly January was the commencement of the decade of action for the stgs in Nigeria However, COVID came around and across the country. There's been challenging circumstances as far as the prospects of achieving the stgs are concerned generally From the health hazards to human consequences of COVID-19 The socioeconomic uncertainties disruptions at a substantial cost to the entire economy and so on and so forth, but particularly There's been a lot of work done around the priority Goals that have been impacted the most negatively impacted the most as far as the goals As far as COVID-19 is concerned and I will talk to go one as for one As well as go three as you know on health and well-being Goal four and five education as well as gender equality and of course go 16 and 17 on goal one and eight It's it's it's Nigeria Still trying to recover from the recession and now Faced with a global pandemic The matters of COVID-19 and its press across the world has actually forced a decline in all prices by 55 But however in Nigeria the national assembly called for drastic review and changes in the earlier revenue expectations and fiscal projections for Nigeria We have a projection to have a combined effect of a 0.55 percent drop in GDP in Nigeria Because of COVID-19. I mean that's that's a bit From our end And that's about goal one for goal three, which is the Health and well-being the major one is The toll that it took on the health facilities generally Of course the infrastructure across the country You can imagine that even health workers suffered a lot As COVID-19 cases were resulting to functioning below capacity or shutting down completely of this Health centers and the fear of the monumental break Keeping people at home with a lot of uncertainty Um, it's also caused a lot of disruption in the routine of health services from maternal health issues to child and reproductive health services as well as nutrition and and so on and so forth that's a bit about Goal three if we look at goal four We examine it from the very fact that Schools could not be opened and generally the spread of COVID-19 led to increased number of children youth and adults to stop education to stop attending schools And school calendars were largely disrupted But more importantly in this part of the world is the fact that This people that stopped going to school majority who suspect Will not Go back to school. So it took a lot to convince some of this Based of the pyramid households to get their children into the school system And now that they've had to sit at home for a number of months It's going to take much more effort, you know to convince them to get back into into the school as schools begin to receive in terms of goal five It's it's largely also aligned with the global Menace of a lot of issues with women meant both mental and Just generally on the mining the efforts of women in the society Relatedly women are the largest Keteras for the needs for beneficiaries Of something called the nsip in Nigeria And that nsip has about four components and this is a deliberate effort because of the size Of how COVID-19 has negatively affected Women in Nigeria. So we have the national social investment program made up of conditional cash transfers homegrown school feeding And something called empower empower it's a vocational capability building for women in Nigeria And Before the last one is the goal 16 Which is to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development In Nigeria as we know Already peace has been largely disrupted Especially in the northern region So when we add things like the pandemic to the peace and security that had been largely Negatively affected we're talking about huge Pandemics and security issues here Evidently health pandemics Have the capacity by themselves alone to increase the risk of domestic violence Violence extended to even health workers that are Attempting to save the situation Is largely A situation to deal with In the northern part of Nigeria You know apart from COVID-19 itself And lastly Let's go 17 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize global partnership for sustainable development For Nigeria the total government revenues as a proportion of GDP Witness a marginal increase from 2015 to 2018 But now with COVID-19 out to break Um It's induced economic contraction Including the drastic decline in the pride of crude oil The capacity of Nigeria to generate the 2020 projected revenue Is really quite on the mind. Um, it's really looking very very, uh, I mean safe to say hopeless But we do know that there's been quite a number of efforts By the federal and state governments as well as developing partners and organized private sector To step up their efforts to increase funding generally Targeted at COVID-19 itself majorly for the health sector and by extension For the achievement of the goals over Thank you so much Maurice and I appreciate the sort of goal by goal analysis and Of course, as you said, you know, Nigeria is Being very hard hit not only by a health crisis, but by an economic Crisis because of this because of this drop in the in the oil price So, yeah Coupled with of course, as you mentioned the ongoing instability Judith over to you With your perspective and expertise on gender and poverty And and the work of your NGO I'd be Interested particularly if you could tackle a little bit they'll leave no one behind Angle of of how the pandemic is affecting stg implementation in Zimbabwe Judith, I'm afraid you're you're still on mute Okay, there we go Okay, thank you if I think I'll just I will limit myself to maybe four three four and eight as I as I Share about the situation in Zimbabwe and probably pick from where colleagues have already spoken about education and say in Zimbabwe schools Schools and universities are closed down with the 24th of March And before the COVID pandemic They were at least one million 1.2 million children between the ages of three and 12 years who needed And a specialized services in education these children included Often in vulnerable children children with disabilities Children living with HIV and AIDS and children who needed a school feeding So with the closure of the schools The the impact really was adverse for more than 4.6 million students across from from ecd to primary secondary and entire institutions And as a response Government then introduced e-learning. It also introduced the radio programs to try and keep students Engaged in education, but unfortunately This is at the backdrop Of a country that only has 41 percent of the population with access to electricity and of that percentage 16 Only 16 percent are found in the rural areas and 70 percent in the urban areas And more than 80 percent of the rural population actually rely on wood fuel For for for the for their day-to-day subsistence in that regard So the benefits we we then begin to see High inequalities happening not only between rural and urban population But also within urban populations themselves because with the introduction of the e-learning you find that No, the the electricity supply in Zimbabwe is generally erratic So even those in the urban areas could not are not always connected for them to have the e-learning and also The data costs are really huge Because this is coming at a time where if you are looking at even goal eight Where the country is highly highly informalized the unemployment rate was already high before COVID-19 So you find that the benefits of even introducing e-learning were only Enjoyed by a few of the students who would have afforded it Governments yes during the course of the period is negotiated with the service providers For reasonable packages of data But even that still is only focusing on those who already have access Access to electricity Access to internet and those in the rural areas are completely left out We have also seen that students who have impairments like hearing Vision impairments they cannot benefit from the platforms that have been put up. For example Some schools have been innovative where they don't have internet. They've created WhatsApp groups But where you have students who have impairments hearing visual impairments They cannot access the the those those platforms and the e-learning are platforms um And so you find that within the education like more say this is a generation Where people are talking about sustainability This is a generation which if it's crippled now the the long term impacts are really immense Because for children to catch up to Only yesterday the government opened For students who are going to sit for their Cambridge examinations and who are going to sit for local examinations So those have been asked now to go back and sit the examinations But the question on everybody's mind including parents who saw their children day in day out Not doing anything productive academic wise is what is it that they are going to rip Out of the of of the of the examinations So the the opening up and allowing students to write almost becomes a book sticking exercise But we are all anxious to see what what will come out of it and um Like I also indicated zimbabwe before covid The official unemployment rate is at 11 percent But we know that the reality is the unemployment rate is over 80 percent And the economy is highly informalized Where you have over 90 percent of businesses in zimbabwe being in the informal sector So the lockdown not only did it disrupt the informal activities But in most cases it's actually short show For most of the people who are in the informal sector So that's over 70 percent of the population Who are being left behind in the economic development of the country and now with the new normal Where everything is going digital The people in the informal sector most of them By the time covid came very few of them had the skills and the capacity to operate online And so now so now digital marketing is becoming a challenge But even when the country is loosening the lockdown measures and trying to open up the economy Most of them cannot get back to where they were And even if they open they don't have the skills and capacity To then operate in the new normal of digital um operation And the informal economy is then what Holds most of the population So you find that parents who have these children who are supposed to be doing a learning To not have disposable income because their business is really being disrupted So you see that official cycle Are happening all over again And maybe if I can just briefly speak about um health uh looking at um At call three From what I said with regards the statistics of simbabwe and covid 19 Relatively we we we are we are not at a bed set I mean every life matters. We are sorry for the lives that were lost But our statistics converge to other countries are manageable But so really the challenges that we see in the health sector In my view are not necessarily as a result of covid 19 These are challenges that we have heard for a long time What covid 19 has only done is to put a spotlight on those challenges On on the neglect that has been put on not investing In efficient health systems. We already heard challenges of accessibility Of affordability of health services. We already had challenges of um persistent Strikes by health personnel We already had challenges of um our health facilities not having enough drugs So those challenges were already there what covid 19 has done is to exacerbate that situation In and maybe the other thing that I might highlight is in responding to covid 19 um The government took a very health oriented kind of approach and probably not looking at the larger picture So you find that government is invested a lot in terms of building for the first time In all districts isolation and treatment standards These are in districts where you don't have hospitals that are functional But resources have been channeled towards building this infrastructure Which in my view might not necessarily be optimally used given our levels of um covid Infections so in so doing you find that for example women are disproportionately affected Because maternal health services are not up to standards and they cannot then access them Because resources are being put to specifically respond to covid related kind of emergencies So in that regard you see that the the gap in terms of um accessibility affordability of resources continues to be wide and wide The might analyze groups the traditionally might analyze groups women Children people with disability are really in a difficult situation during this period Yeah Thank you so much judith and um, I think you you stated it Really well is that A lot of the challenges that we're seeing right now are not new It's just exacerbating Existing issues whether it's a weakness in a health system or a weakness in an educational system It's the pandemic is really putting the spotlight on on all of these challenges So yeah with with the time we have left because I'd like to leave a few minutes for discussion um, I want to give you all the opportunity I don't want to artificially um Try to brighten the mood because everything has been very somber and it's um It's uh, it's obviously a very difficult situation, but I would be interested in hearing About the work that you're doing Um in your organizations to address some of these issues that we've talked about So this is an opportunity to talk about some some new initiatives some solutions and also a chance to promote some of the great work that you're doing Um, so I'd like to give you each just just two minutes. So we're mindful of the time So we have some opportunity for discussion Um, and so I'd like to go back to you first professor wary um to say a few words um about the the lancet commission and some of the work there and maybe some other Things that you're working on um in kenya and then we'll we'll just circle back around Uh, you're still on mute professor wear it I don't need it I thank you very much in the lancet commission we have been looking at the impact of Covid 19 and uh As you might guess we have found of course that it has a lot of impacts negative impacts or the physical well-being of countries on social well-being particularly the health status We have the school system and and and and so many other things so the approach we've been taking is how do we get More people informed about what's actually happening So the lancet commission wrote a report which was presented by our chairman for success the un uh general assembly And in this last day during this month And it was what we're seeing so what we're what we're trying to do is to reach out to other 20 and the heads of So that we can find ways of approaching this way. Well, for instance the imf Uh, is the organization that has the potential to respond to financial crisis So one of the things we're discussing is how do we work? How does the commission work with IMF or members of the community to be able to respond Maybe not by country by country, but in a group of countries So it is it is a a hope evening situation while While The institution is really uh, I don't think it's very different from the others because it is just Right now the problem is money. There might be the problem is It was not a planned event and we're already struggling And unfortunately we do have the problem of corruption so that Some of the funds disappear along along the way somehow so we are trying to work on all those things but uh It's a difficult situation, but we can't run away from it I'm very happy to see that my two colleagues are young women young people So I hope that the younger generation in Africa seems very determined to find solutions And that's giving me a lot of hope and a lot of joy. Thank you Thank you so much professor where and for those who are interested in the chat I included the link to the commission's uh first statement um and so over then to uh more ease to say a few words about abc health and Some of the solutions and things that are being worked on in nigeria and beyond because this is a continental coalition Thank you so much um I think a good place to start is uh the efforts that we witnessed in nigeria uh with the private sector coming together As soon as this uh, kovid was you know identified as a pandemic. Um, it was so um I mean safe to say well done that uh Together as a private sector businesses came together and they were able to put together funding Um, that was necessary for the immediate response Um to kovid in our country as large as nigeria and all together they were able to put together about 75 million usd I mean nigeria. That's some substantial amount of money coming from you know, um corporate businesses um to talk particularly to what we do in africa business coalition for health um is to galvanize businesses in a structured way to get them to um scale on health outcomes in individual countries across africa In other words, we are the we want to call ourselves a go-to person um who has you know fashioned out um the time the resources to put a more structured approach to um health development um supports to government um from the private sector for african country and so what the founding partners uh will happens to be um a co-chair of the global business coalition for health um And a liquid dangute foundation um through a liquid dangute himself What they came together to do is to kind of mirror The success of the global business coalition for health and apply those models those opportunities Those approaches to african countries to combat health and improve health outcomes And that's what we're all about. Um, we're just we're really quite new now We're only launched in 2019 in february 2019 on the margins of the african union uh business summit in adiz um in february 2019 But we're in the middle of you know putting together our strategy now and at some point we want to go to um respective african countries to deploy private sector health alliances to um Get them more focused um to get them more channeled more charged um around improving health outcomes In africa as a region so we're partnering with governments with regional institutions with international agencies We're taking all you know all the resources We're adopting a more structured and result oriented and scalable In terms of impact approach to it We're hopeful that if it's more organized if it's more if it's deliberately structured There's a tendency that more will be done than having individual Corporates doing you know things by themselves and yeah, that's what we're about in abc health Thank you so much morris. It's um It's great to have the perspective also of of the private sector. So so thank you for that and uh jude with the the closing words about um Some of the things that you're working on at the poverty reduction forum trust and uh and some positive developments, hopefully Thank you if Actually, what we know what we noticed with the advent of kovat 19 was um everybody And most of government were overwhelmed in trying to respond directly to kovat 19 to the extent that we felt STGs were being put in the big banner So we have made it a deliberate effort to ensure that they remain On the table and to do this we because we are in organization that does um police advocacy Informed by by research which is participated. So we do a lot of our engagements with with the different stakeholders So we have really are deliberately put make make sure that we have a series of um programs On the online platforms using radio Using web nas to engage to constantly make sure that the issues of STGs Are not left out. We have a series of radio programs bringing together even government itself. We have um Engaged government because at the start of the lockdown Government puts in place a social protection Safe net where they are giving the vulnerable groups that they targeted initially they were giving them a 150 Zimbabwe dollars which that time was like one dollar 50 and now it has been increased to 300 That's about three dollars. So we have been making noise with the minister to ensure that in what informs the safe net Is um the framework that the government is coming from and in this particular case We are saying the STGs because government committed government also prioritized the STGs They need to be informed by those indicators that we need to be tracking and ensure that the people's digging is maintained throughout So that's the kind of engagement that we we have been having. So we continuously galvanize civil society voice so we can track Whatever interventions government is putting in place even in the name of COVID-19 to what extent they respond to the To the targets that government is committed to so We are not necessarily on the ground Doing things because we are into research So our work is limited really to just engaging and giving voice and agency to to governments as the interventions Thank you Thank you so much Judith for for the great work that you're doing and that's really also at the heart of what SDSN is trying to do is Use research to inform better policymaking towards the STGs And of course your organization is also a member of the SDSN And and we thank you for that. In fact all of you in one way or another have been connected to our work So thank you for your different contributions and thank you so much for joining this launch and this discussion panel today I don't actually see any Questions in the chat. Oh, I just see one chest question actually for you Judith From uh, Tinelle de la Cruz The question is I see there is an SDG trend of quote on track maintaining a green arrow Can you explain positives or highlights which equate to this positive trend in Zimbabwe? I'm actually surprised that we have a green on SDG 8 I'm I'm surprised as well. I'm gonna I'm gonna pull up the country profile so we can Yes, the same One I don't know The the respondents to the survey when you send it out. So, um, probably because we are in a new Dispensation that came into being in 2018 And part of the mantra of that new dispensation was Zimbabwe's open for business So they've been riding on that one opening up to investors coming into Zimbabwe but we haven't seen results that That if trickled down That if trickled down to the ordinary persons in Zimbabwe Like I said earlier on in my In in in my presentation that is in Zimbabwe some unemployment rate From the anecdotal information is over 80 percent So unless you are using the official data, which is 11 percent. So really, um I'm surprised by the green especially in SDG 8. It's for me. It's far from being green Thank you So so what we see here is that the current status is orange, which is You know one of the the poorer scores But that the projections from here to 2030 is that actually Zimbabwe would be On track and if we go over and look this this gives me a chance for you all to see How our our indicators are presented it looks like there's a positive trend on the employment to population ratio A positive trend on adults with a bank account And also on the starting a business score. So That that goes to what you were saying about the quote-unquote open for business policy so Yeah, again the the trends are our projections that are based on On performance over the past few years And the the data that we're using in the report this year um Of course is data that predates the pandemic and so I think unfortunately a lot of the positive projections May not pan out because of the challenges that we've been discussing Maybe just to add if maybe just to add to say because I think Zimbabwe is I don't know if there are any other countries on the african continent Which is popular with having University graduates who are doing linear jobs on the on the on the streets because our industries Most of them have closed down and um Unless our education system changes to to to to breeding Interpreting new ones not job seekers. We might just continue to have a very high unemployment and productive rate Yes, yeah, thank you for that point We have another question about the impact of population growth on sdg implementation And how this is contributing to some other challenges um I wonder morris coming from the most populist country in africa if you can say a couple of words about the challenge of Really high population growth right, um Yes Coming from nigeria the most populist country in africa and also residing in lego state. Um, the most popular city Uh, so it's actually really been challenging. Um from the perspective of particularly of the commercial city of lego states In terms of achieving the goals there's been a lot of strain on the infrastructure as they put them in place um From a lego's point of view, but largely, uh, I think general for for nigeria My own position will be that I think it's pretty early to still to kind of give a precise prediction about how um COVID-19 has actually really impacted negatively on Achieving the goals. I think another three to six months would be a better time because I think the the COVID was such a um Was such a surprise um to the entire to the entirety of the plans and you know, they um all And every other thing that um, it will be unfair. Um, as we're budding and you know, just getting out of the COVID By god's grace. We will finally get out of it and and and to see how much people can actually come back to the table and kind of Intensify the efforts and you know fast forward most of these things that All the times that have been wasted and try to put things um in a better perspective. So generally in terms of population I I mean, I have the facts and data or before COVID. Um, I think it was a big strain on the entire um infrastructure system uh Nigeria and cuisine in population still staggers The achievement of the gold even though there are efforts, you know here and there But again, even migration into commercial small commercial cities like Lagos like protocols gets worrying, you know All the time because we can tell that the population in those respective places um The infrastructures in place And the plant, you know Is it's not it's not aligned in any way. It doesn't look like I mean, uh, we're ever going to live in the air And there's just a lot of people, you know, um in small places Works at the base of the pyramid and other Levels of livelihood. Uh, so generally I will say it's it's a big strain on the entire um development and infrastructure um Levels of of a place like Nigeria in terms of jobs and employment in terms of empowerment in terms of women um a woman vocational training for women and so on and so forth um It's a struggle the governments are struggling. Um, and hopefully we We're looking forward to a brighter Nigeria Thank you so much for that perspective. Um, and with the couple minutes we have left We have one last question. Uh, I'm going to ask you professor where if you can help me answer it um, this is from, uh Professor labore popola who's the vice chancellor of osun state university in Nigeria Uh, he's the chair of sds in Nigeria um And his question to wrap up our discussion today is in spite of the pandemic How do you rate the overall performance of the continent on the sdgs? Do you feel like the continent is doing well that there's positive um impetus towards these goals? Oh, you're still on mute professor I think the the question is um If you aside from the pandemic um, if you how do you consider the overall performance of african countries on the sdgs Is your sense that there's a a positive direction or stagnation or worse that um, that the goals are are off track Well, the overall performance Is not very encouraging As as as was given in the report Uh, out of the 17 sdgs Modern 13 didn't have a green indication that we are moving forward So there was there was the evidence that we are struggling And the second evidence that not everybody is struggling equally because there we are not moving together A lot of people are being left behind so really We really need to cut the drawing board again and uh, I'm very grateful that The sudden the sdsm Is working with africa on these issues Even through the sdgs chapters that is developing in the african continent or in national continent because in national context Because we really need to come up with a drawing board now The unfortunate part is that the pandemic has made things worse because Not only has it made what helps worse, but it has made the economic situation worse. It has made the The trading situation worse. It has made transportation of resources Through african terms of supply is more difficult But we have to survive and that is the the bottom line is that we have to survive so I think that I can say my son who is the vice chancellor of our university Particularly academics need to go back to the drawing board and say how we get out of this It is not going to be an easy challenge, but we must survive and so we shall survive But we need to have really serious thinking If you look at this report, which is the 2020 report that we are launching today There are lots of challenges and I think we need to first of all that we have challenges We are not doing brilliantly before the pandemic But not the pandemic has made it even more difficult So that's the reality that we have to deal with That's the reality that we We must address and even may just mention about the population issue One of the problems we have had is that We haven't even been meeting the demand for family planning you know What we have been interested in family planning That we have been able to provide And now with the pandemic this demand will probably become And the next demand will probably become bigger under You know people with They want to grant their families when they can't So the challenges are not small, but How we lift them that is the point that we give up But how we organize we have to organize suffrage I think we need a little innovative thinking for a way forward I think I have a professional I would say well If we look at including health Because you can have six children in school, six teachers, six One workers and so on If we include health SDC one two and three Maybe that's a starting point We are building it on SDG 13 While we are doing this kind of thing well 19 and 12 So maybe we could move on, but we can't find a way forward And the challenge is who is going to find that way forward Thank you so much and just looking at the time we are We are coming up on our hour and a half This discussion has been really rich really nuanced Sharing perspectives from different parts of the continent And also different areas of work from non-profit policy advising to The the private sector and professor where is rich and varied experience as an educator and also as an advocate It's been a real privilege to to have this discussion with the three of you. Thank you so much Thank you for the work that you're all doing I'm I'm going to applaud by myself But I'm sure that the participants are also applauding from their homes and offices and Wherever they're joining us from around the world Thank you so much and We are we have recorded this session So we'll also make it available on the SDG index website So as a reminder, that's SDG index org You can download not only the africa report, but the summary available in english and in french We have the short video that I showed at the beginning of this webinar We'll have this recording available as well and you can also explore our whole family of SDG index reports We've done reports for Latin America for Europe for the Arab region And so if you're interested in seeing how other parts of the world are doing and of course we have our global sustainable development report As well So thank you to all the participants to our wonderful panel and take care of yourselves wear your masks wash your hands Um and with the hopes that we'll be able to convene together very soon Take care Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you Bye