Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) – Uncertainties and Challenges Post COVID-19

Abstract

The paper provides an overview of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and makes an effort to assess the challenges and uncertainties in the context of the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The narrative for the five SSPs are based on global assumptions and misses out on the country specific processes that could influence future socioeconomic trajectories. The assessment finds that the basic assumptions for macroeconomic growth - driven by human capital efficiency, no future growth disruptions and the future growth align with the historical development trajectories are vulnerable to risks posed by climate change and shocks imposed by pandemics. Also, SSPs do not factor in the sectoral contribution of agriculture, manufacturing and services which gets impacted through different channels during the pandemic and would have heterogeneous impacts across countries. The non-inclusion of disruption in projections under SSPs results in inflated growth and underestimation of vulnerability and economic loses. This is detrimental for choice of mitigation and adaptation policies and sustainable development pathways. The sudden change in internal migration due to shocks like pandemic which has essentially been an urban phenomenon and their impact on dynamics of urbanization has highlighted the importance of inclusion of migration in urbanization projection for SSPs. The uncertainties and challenges exposed by the pandemic have provided the opportunity to reassess the SSPs. There is an urgent need for a bottom-up approach of developing extended SSPs specific to the national or sub-national level and make projections by incorporating the country specific inputs in the model that are likely to be impacted by disruptions. This would provide a more realistic outcome that would be closer to the expected pathways and reduce uncertainties associated with the projections.