The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable development goals – A survey

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest challenge facing humanity after the 1918 Flu pandemic. The pandemic also poses a massive challenge to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Meeting this challenge requires a comprehensive investigation of the impact of the pandemic on sustainability. In this work, publications related to the impact of COVID-19 on sustainability in the Web of Science database were explored systematically by using bibliometrics techniques and meta-analysis approach. The results show the research scope is extensive, covering many subjects, whereas the research depth is not enough. Research in developed countries is dominant, although the pandemic poses more significant challenges to the sustainable development of developing countries than of developed countries. Developed countries are committed to studying education sustainability, while developing countries have shown greater attention to economic sustainability during the epidemic. The cluster analysis also shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought negative effects on 17 SDGs goals, whereas the pandemic may also bring opportunities to another 14 SDGs goals. At the end of the article, we put forward relevant suggestions for achieving sustainable development goals in the post-epidemic era.

COVID-19 Impacts and Sustainability Strategies for Regional Recovery in Southeast Asia: Challenges and Opportunities

“…Third, the previous meta-analysis also implied that the current literature in developed countries was still dominant [10]. Additionally, related research on the COVID-19 effects in other contexts, such as developing countries, was still lacking [9,10].…”

“…The review also identifies various articles with emphasis on different sustainability pillars (i.e., economic, environmental and social dimensions [9,13,19]. Additionally, only few studies analyze the pandemic effects on all three sustainability pillars, based on the holistic framework of the UN SDGs [7,8,10,14]. Additionally, the existing literature lacks inclusive research on the pandemic impacts on attaining the targets of the UN SDGs [14].…”

“…Leal Filho et al [7] further assessed the impacts of the COVID-19 on progress toward the UN SDGs. Later, more researchers (i.e., [8,10]) focused on advancing the knowledge base in the domain using a systematic review, meta-analysis or bibliometric techniques.…”

“…Third, the previous meta-analysis also implied that the current literature in developed countries was still dominant [10]. Additionally, related research on the COVID-19 effects in other contexts, such as developing countries, was still lacking [9,10]. As such, additional studies in various settings or regions would be much needed to expand our limited knowledge in this field.…”

“…To date, numerous studies (e.g., [4,[6][7][8]) have largely presented general conceptual arguments, strategies and analyses on COVID-19 pandemic impacts at a macro-level with the global-oriented viewpoints. In fact, developing countries have been highly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic [9,10]. The pandemic has badly hit developing countries, and many emerging economies have been experiencing weaker growth [11,12].…”