Sustainable Development Goals 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

 Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Global industrial growth was already in decline before the COVID-19 pandemic, due to trade-related conflicts between the world's major countries. When it happened, people and products were unable to move freely, damaging global value chains as well as the industrial and transportation industries. Small-scale businesses, in particular, have been hit hard. A country's capacity to perform and respond to shocks is hampered by a lack of physical infrastructure, information and communication technology, and fundamental services. Industrialization, infrastructural improvements, and the encouragement of technical innovation through increased investment in research and development are critical for the global community to attain Goal 9.  An example of the power of technological innovation is the development and production of vaccines against COVID-19 in record time which has given the world cause for hope.

The COVID19 Crisis has plummed global manufacturing production.

The pandemic impacted the industrial sector more than the global financial crisis of 2007–2009, resulting in a 6.8% decline in output in 2020. Manufacturing value added (MVA) as a percentage of world GDP declined from 16.6% to 16.0 percent during 2019 and 2020. Manufacturing employment fell by an average of 5.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 and 2.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2020 in the 49 nations with data available, compared to the same periods in 2019. Working-hour losses were considerably worse, at 11.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 and 4.4 per cent in the third quarter. In 2020, manufacturing in LDCs is expected to rise by a minimal 1.9 per cent, compared to 8.7% in 2019. MVA's proportion of total GDP in these nations increased from 10% in 2010 to 12.8 per cent in 2020, far too slowly to meet the aim of doubling it by 2030. MVA was barely $136 per capita in LDCs in 2020, compared to $4,296 in Europe and Northern America.