Key messages
- Threatening to derail progress towards the SDGs, COVID-19’s devastating health, social and economic impacts are set to worsen inequalities within and between countries.
- To avoid a downward spiral that intensifies economic damage and catalyzes a broader humanitarian crisis, addressing inequalities should be a core part of implementing the UN system’s framework for the immediate socioeconomic response to COVID-19.
- Governments and the global community have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ‘build back better’, to transform economies and create more equitable societies that allow everyone to enjoy the full range of their human rights, without discrimination.
- To achieve this, bold action is needed to build stronger, equity-focused health systems; to strengthen social protection and public services; to forge a jobs-intensive recovery for people-centred and environmentally sustainable economies; to implement gender-responsive economic policies, based on international solidarity and multilateral collaboration; and to ensure social cohesion and community resilience