It’s time for global leaders to address the world’s biggest crises.

Progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals - promises made by all United Member States to strive for peace and prosperity for people and the planet - was already slow. However, in the wake of Covid-19 those goals are even more at risk of being missed, particularly with regards to those focussed on the eradication of poverty and global hunger.

Indeed, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme poverty is on the rise for the first time in almost 25 years, threatening to push 40 million more people into extreme poverty. Moreover, world hunger levels have been rising since 2015, and will only increase as a result of Covid-19. By 2022, the pandemic will lead to an additional 9.3 million wasted (low weight for height) children and 2.6 stunted (low height for age) children. As such, we’ve joined up with 70 organisations to ask the UK government to Crack the Crises and play a leading role to build a fairer world for all.

The two main opportunities for governments to commit to change are the G7 in June, which is the first significant in-person gathering of leaders during the Covid-19 pandemic, and COP26 in November, which will be the largest gathering of world leaders the UK has ever seen.

The G7 must seize this moment to crack the crises of Covid-19, injustice and climate change.

In 2020, we came together to fight Covid-19 and its aftershocks. We showed up, for key workers, for each other and our children, when it counted most. Now, in 2021, let’s come together to overcome the challenges we face, to achieve the Global Goals – agreed to by every leader – and to celebrate the resilience and kindness of our communities.