COVID-19, the Russo-Ukrainian War, the global sustainable development project and post-crises demography

Abstract

The global sustainable development project as currently conceived is foundering, and the twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War have driven a stake through its heart. Some of the reasons for this failure are fundamental design flaws, while others are practical. The resources to bring the project – or its successor, and any other global sustainable development project of similar design and ambition that might emerge – to a successful conclusion do not exist, and never did. What lessons are we learning, and how can they inform post-2030 sustainable development goals? In this essay, the effects of the catastrophes of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the global sustainable development project are enumerated, SDG by SDG, with special attention being paid to the implications for demography. In closing, recommendations for reforms of the project are presented, as are some suggestions for the field of demography in the changed global context. The most concrete, feasible immediate recommendations are to make up recently lost ground, specifically in the areas of vaccination and education; and to reform the profoundly flawed international asylum and refugee system.