The World Progress on Goal 1 (NO Poverty)

 

The World Progress on Goal 1 : No Poverty

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  In adopting Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the world made a pledge to leave no one behind and to reach those furthest behind first. Moreover Agenda 2030 recognizes that ending poverty in all its forms everywhere is the greatest global challenge facing the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. While the world has made progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1, poverty has been persistent and remains a major cause for concern in developing countries. 

 High-Level Meeting on Poverty Eradication Trends and Strategies: Background and Justification

Even before COVID-19 struck and incapacitated economies, the international community has consistently identified poverty as a global challenge, one that is linked to other social, political and security nightmares. In its resolution A/50/107 of 1995, the General Assembly proclaimed 1997-2006 as the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty. In December 1996, the General Assembly declared the theme for the Decade to be “Eradicating poverty is an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind.”

  In its resolution A/63/230 of 2008, the General Assembly proclaimed the Second UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017) with the theme “Full employment and decent work for all”. The resolution called for a more coherent and integrated UN system-wide response to poverty and reiterated that eradicating poverty was the greatest global challenge facing the world and a core requirement for the attainment of the internationally agreed development goals, especially for developing countries.

  In its resolution A/72/233 of 2017, the General Assembly declared 2018-2027 the Third United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, choosing as the Decade’s theme, “Accelerating global actions for a world without poverty,” in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

  In effect, therefore, the High-Level Meeting will set stage for, and assist the organization of, the subsequent Annual Colloquium series on Poverty Eradication Challenges and Priorities.

 

 Objectives of the High-Level Meeting

The objectives of the High-Level Meeting are to provide a forum at which Member States can:

•    Reflect on the role of the Alliance for Poverty Eradication in raising awareness about the measures that need to be instituted to accelerate the attainment of SDG 1 and the implementation of Agenda 2030.
•  Deliberate on measures that need to be instituted to ameliorate widespread poverty and its attendant consequences, particularly, the consequences that are aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
•  Compare notes and exchange ideas on cross-national good practices in poverty eradication, especially the short- and long-term policies that should be strengthened and replicated, to log in unbroken gains in poverty eradication.
•  Reflect on the major (including policy, institutional, attitudinal, and resource) changes that need to be instituted to enhance production capacities within and across sectors, while, at the same time, making visible dents on poverty during and after the Covid-19 lockdown.
•  Propose modalities for funding poverty eradication schemes, based on priorities identified by, and requests received from, Member States; and, hopefully,
•  Reach a consensus on UN’s role in meeting the challenges of poverty eradication and in accumulating measurable and sustainable gains within the shortest possible period.

 

In 2010, around 16% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, living on an average of $0.87 cents per day. The total extreme poverty gap stood at $169 Billion in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 2005. Though a much smaller gap than the previous decades, this still represented 0.25% of the world’s GDP. By 2015, global extreme poverty was down to 10% (736 million people). By 2018, it was down to 8.6%. However, more than 55% of the entire world population still lacked access to any form of social protection cash benefits. In 2018, working persons and their families made up 8% of the world’s poor. However, there are countries that have made great progress in poverty reduction over the last decade.

Tanzania’s Decline in Poverty

Since the turn of the new century, Tanzania has reported one of the largest declines in the poverty rate. In 2018, Tanzania reported a decline of at least 10%, showing great progress in poverty reduction over the last decade. The population living in poverty fell from 34.4% to 24.4%. Though the poverty rate remains significant, Tanzania has reportedly lifted more than a million people out of extreme poverty since 2007.

In addition to the general decline in poverty, Tanzania showed a large reduction in food insecurity and extreme poverty. Such success was seen mostly in rural Tanzania, a more impactful outcome of the reduced poverty figures. Simultaneously, Tanzania saw a 10% growth in its GDP per capita.

Tajikistan

Poverty rates in Tajikistan have been on the decline for some time. They fell from 83% in 1999 to 57% in 2004. Tajikistan continued to make great progress in poverty reduction over the past decade moving from 37% to 32% to 29% in 2012, 2014 and 2017, respectively. Additionally, the GDP per capita grew approximately 37.5% between 2010 and 2017, with wages in Tajikistan growing by over 120% and productivity by 28%.

For the past 25 years, extreme poverty has been steadily declining. In fact, the world is moving toward meeting the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic and worsening climate change, 2020 brought an increase in extreme poverty from 88 million to 115 million people. Therefore, countries must double down on efforts to regain control on the reduction of 

poverty.

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The sustainable development Goal No Poverty aspires to achieve the following progress by 2030:

• By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions. 
• Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable. 
• By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance. 
• By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters. 
• Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions.
• Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions."

 Some of The UN progress that have been made to eradicate poverty and to support goal 1 are described in the following video.

 

:Reference 

Un.org. 2020. TRENDS, OPTIONS AND STRATEGIES IN POVERTY ERADICATION ACROSS THE WORLD | General Assembly of the United Nations. [online] Available at: https://www.un.org/pga/74/event/trends-options-and-strategies-in-poverty-eradication-across-the-world/  [Accessed 12 April 2021].

 Harris, R., 2021. Progress in Poverty Reduction Over the Last Decade - BORGEN. [online] BORGEN. Available at: https://www.borgenmagazine.com/poverty-reduction-over-the-last-decade/  [Accessed 13 April 2021].

 Library mentonegirls. 2021. Library Guides: Sustainable Development Goal 1 | No Poverty: Overview. [online] Available at: https://library.mentonegirls.vic.edu.au/global-sdg1-no-poverty  [Accessed 13 April 2021].

Video: Sekhran, N (2015). Sustainable Development Goals Explained: No Poverty [eVideo]. United Nations.  https://youtu.be/R6L2hFs4agg Video: (YouTube, 2015) 

  

Image 1: Ec.europa.eu. 2020. SDG 1 - No poverty (statistical annex) - Statistics Explained. [online] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=SDG_1_-_No_poverty_(statistical_annex)  [Accessed 14 April 2021].

Image 2:World Bank Blogs. 2015. MDG 1: Uneven progress in reducing extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition. [online] Available at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/mdg-uneven-progress-reducing-extreme-poverty-hunger-and-malnutrition  [Accessed 14 April 2021].