UN Sustainability Goals -No Poverty

The UN can be known as one place where the world's nations can assemble, consult common concerns, and find shared solutions. United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, in 2015. It acts as a versatile call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The UN developed 17 Sustainable Development Goals and aims to achieve them by 2030. Each goal has 8–12 targets, and each target has between one and four indicators used to measure progress toward attaining the end goal. The 17 goals are combined—they realize that activity in one area will affect outcomes in others and that growth must balance social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Countries have dedicated to prioritizing progress for those who are furthest behind. The SDGs aim to end poverty, hunger, AIDS, and discrimination against women and girls. The creativity, know-how, technology, and financial resources from humankind are essential to achieve the SDGs in every context. The 17 goals include poverty, education, health, hunger, clean energy, equality, and more.

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Visual Feature: Measuring Progress; environment & SDGs.

What is Sustainability?

Sustainability means fulfilling the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations while guaranteeing harmony between economic growth, environmental care, and social well-being. Having noted this factor, the UN framed the sustainability goals to enhance this earth for a better future.

No Poverty - Goal of UN

The greatest challenge of humanity is eradicating poverty in all its forms. The number of people living in severe poverty reduces by more than half between 1990 and 2015. But still, many are struggling with the most fundamental human necessities.

Why No Poverty matter?

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https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/1_Why-It-Matters-2020.pdf

The rapid growth in countries like China and India has lifted millions of people out of poverty, but the progress has yet to be consistent across all regions. In addition, it is a fact that women have a higher likelihood of being poor than men. This is primarily due to the lack of paid work opportunities and education and the ownership of less property.

Other regions, such as South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, account for 80 percent of those living in extreme poverty. Progress to eradicate poverty in these regions is also restricted. New threats arise on climate change, conflict, and food insecurity. It means even more effort is needed to bring people out of poverty. Between 2015 and 2018, global poverty continued to decline, with the poverty rate falling from 10.1 percent in 2015 to 8.6 percent in 2018.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a reversal in the trend of poverty decline. This puts tens of millions of people in danger of falling into extreme poverty. - people living on less than $1.90/day. The global poverty rate increased sharply from 8.3 percent in 2019 to 9.2 percent in 2020, denoting the first increase in extreme poverty since 1998 and the most significant increase since 1990. It sets back poverty reduction by about three years.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a setback in the steady progress made towards poverty reduction over the last 25 years. This unfortunate reversal is worsened by increasing inflation and the effects of the conflict in Ukraine. These crises combined are projected to result in an additional 75-95 million people living in extreme poverty in 2021.

Even without considering the impact of COVID-19, it was forecasted that 6% of the world's population would still be living in extreme poverty by the year 2030, which means that the goal of eradicating poverty would not be achieved.

The upcoming months and years will bring about a severe social and economic crisis for developing countries, with the pandemic pushing millions of workers into unemployment, underemployment, and working poverty.

Having a job also does not ensure a worthy living. 7.1 percent of workers and their families worldwide lived in extreme poverty in 2019, a positive decline compared to 2010, but the number will rise in light of the long-term consequences of the pandemic.

SDG 1 is a pledge to eradicate poverty in all its forms and aspects by the year 2030. This requires focusing on those who are most at risk, enhancing fundamental resources and services, and aiding communities impacted by conflict and natural disasters caused by climate change.

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https://worldsustainabilitycollective.com/the-17-un-sdgs/ https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2022/Goal-01/ https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/1_Why-It-Matters-2020.pdf

Facts and Figures

• 736 million People still live in extreme poverty.
• 10% of the world's population lives in extreme poverty, down from 36% in 1990.
• 1.3 billion people live in multidimensional poverty.
• Half of all people living in poverty are under 18.
• One person in every 10 is poor.
• The losses due to the pandemic are much higher for low-income countries. Here poverty reduction has been set back by between eight and nine years. Although the poverty rate aims to decrease to 8.7% in 2021, it is still higher than the pre-pandemic level.
• In 2020, the percentage of workers residing with their families and living below the international poverty line rose to 7.2%, higher than the 6.7% reported in 2019. It means that an additional 8 million workers were pushed into poverty.

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https://myanmar.un.org/ms/sdgs/1

Targets for No Povertyr

• Target 1.1 - “By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.90 a day.”

  The pace of reducing extreme poverty started well in 2010 (15.7 percent), 2015 (10 percent), and 2019 (8.2 percent) and increases to 2020 at (8.4 to 8.8 percent). It is because the COVID-19 pandemic is flipping the poverty reduction cycle. The world's workers in extreme poverty declined from 14.3 to 8.3 to 7.1 percent in 2010, 2015, and 2019, respectively.

• Target 1.2 - By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its proportions according to national descriptions.

According to a 2018 report, China has contributed more than 70 percent of the world's poverty reduction. Over the past four decades, China has reduced the rural poor by 739.9 million through a series of policy and institutional reforms. China's poverty reduction methods include development-oriented poverty alleviation, improving the self-development capacity of the poor, and poverty alleviation methods. These can be a reference for other developing countries to reduce poverty.

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https://sdg-tracker.org/no-poverty

• Target 1.3 - “Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve a considerable range of the poor and the vulnerable.”

  2016 data states that about 4 billion people did not benefit from any form of social protection, which is critical to help the most vulnerable. Half of the world's population still lacks full coverage of essential health services. Only 22 percent of unemployed workers come under unemployment benefits.

• Target 1.4 - By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights. These equal rights include 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.
• Target 1.5 – Build the strength of the poor and those in vulnerable situations. Reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social, and environmental shocks and disasters by 2030.

  A total of 80 countries reported disaster-related losses for 2018, including 23,458 deaths and 2,164 persons missing. More than 39 million persons were affected, and the livelihoods of 29 million were destroyed. In terms of direct economic losses, countries report $23.6 billion, 73 percent of which is in the agricultural sector

• Target 2. A - Ensure effective mobilization of aid from various sources, including through enhanced development alliance. It provides adequate means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programs and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions.
• Target 1. B – Create proper policy frameworks at the national, regional, and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies. It supports accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions.

  The UN has several indicators to measure the above-said targets. Based on these indicators, the progress of the goal is determined.

Why is there so much poverty in the world ?

Poverty has many dimensions, but its reasons include unemployment, social exclusion, and the high vulnerability of certain populations to disasters, diseases, and other phenomena which prevent them from being productive.

Why is social protection so important?

Why should you care about other people economic situation?

There are many reasons, but in short, as human beings, our well-being is linked to each other. Increasing inequality can have negative impacts on economic growth and social harmony. It can lead to political and social tensions, resulting in instability and conflicts in extreme cases.

What can you do about it?

• Your participation in formulating policies can have a significant impact on poverty management.
• Governments have the ability to establish a supportive atmosphere that promotes the creation of beneficial career and employment opportunities for those who are economically disadvantaged and marginalized.
• The private sector plays a major role in deciding whether the growth it creates is inclusive and contributes to poverty reduction.
• Science has made a significant contribution to ending poverty. It has enabled people to access safe drinking water, reduced deaths caused by water-borne diseases, and improved hygiene to reduce health risks associated with unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation.
• Donate what you are not using.
• Support campaigns collecting items for victims of crisis.
• Poverty persists in every country. Over 8% of the world's population lives in extreme poverty. Lend your voice to the fight against extreme poverty.
• Stay informed you can follow your local news or keep up with the Global Goals online or on social media. Let's work together to end extreme poverty.

By acting on the above points, you can bring your commitment to achieving the goal by 2030.

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References

https://caringmagazine.org/no-poverty-why-it-matters/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sdg-number-1-poverty-chambi-kajiru/