Can you imagine living on $1.90 a day? It's hard to imagine, but although the poverty rate has been cut in half since 2000, one in ten families still live on that amount a day.
Countries like China and India have experienced significant economic growth, and many families have escaped poverty. In contrast, in sub-Saharan African countries, 42% of the population continues to live below the poverty line.
Poverty takes many forms, including hunger and malnutrition, which seem obvious, but we also find the lack of decent housing and limited access to basic services such as education and healthcare. Not to mention discrimination, social exclusion, and unequal access to paid work between men and women.
New Kru Town neighborhood in Monrovia, where the St. John of God Clinic is located, which is part of St. Joseph Catholic Hospital in Liberia.
Therefore, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a commitment to end poverty in all its dimensions by 2030.
Here are some of the most visual data that the United Nations compiles on its website for the SDGs:
- Some 783 million people live below the international poverty line, on $1.90 a day.
- In the world, there are 122 women between the ages of 25 and 34 living in extreme poverty for every 100 men in the same age group.
- High poverty rates are often found in small, fragile, and conflict-affected countries.
- In 2016, only 451% of the world's population was effectively covered by a social protection system with at least one cash benefit.
Why is there so much poverty in the world? Can we really achieve this goal? Why is it important? The answers to these questions are in this article. PDF, I invite you to read it by clicking.
A woman prepares food in a settlement where the San Juan de Dios Clinic in Iquitos, Peru, is developing a Community Health project.
Finally, we present some of the goals we hope to achieve through the SDGs by 2030:
- Reduce by at least 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 minimum levels, and achieve broad coverage of the poor and vulnerable
- Promote the resilience of the poor and people in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental crises and disasters
- Ensure significant resource mobilization from various sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, to provide developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, with adequate and predictable means to implement programmes and policies aimed at ending poverty in all its dimensions
Sources:
- https://www.undp.org/content/undp/es/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-1-no-poverty.html
- https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/es/poverty/
By MarĂa Escolar, Volunteer 2.0 at Juan Ciudad NGO.
