UN report on SGD, we are far away from defeating poverty

At the end of July, the Report of the UN on the progresses made in the field of the Sustainable Development Agenda of 2030 will be presented.

The document that monitors the progresses made in relation to the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda will be presented at the end of July to the UN. In the abstract published in the preparation phase, some observations of the Secretary General António Guterres and the data related to each individual objective of the Agenda are presented. The basic consideration of the document is that, although progresses have been made on some important goals, in general, the pace of progresses is not so fast as to guarantee the achievement of the goals of the Agenda.

One of the objectives that has proven to be more problematic is precisely Goal1, which aims at eliminating and reducing extreme poverty to less than 3% by 2030. According to the UN data, extreme poverty is going through a constant reduction, and it went from 36% of the global population in 1990 to 16% in 2010, to 10% in 2015. In 2018, the 8,6% of the global population still lives in extreme poverty, with a slowdown in the reduction of the rates.

Furthermore, 8% of the global population lives in extreme poverty in spite of having a job: a situation that is still particularly worrying in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the working poor rate is 38% in 2018.

Social protection is undoubtedly one of the biggest protection factors against extreme poverty: in 2018, 55% of the global population does not benefit from any form of social protection. Only 35% of the children enjoys social protection, and children continue being, together with women and disabled people, the most vulnerable category of persons.

The catastrophes (wars, extreme climate events) have a significant impact on the regression towards extreme poverty: the UN considers that the catastrophic events during the last 20 years (1998 – 2017) have provoked damages for over 3 trillion of dollars, and 77% of them is an external climatic event. 90% of deaths connected to such events happened in poor countries.

Read the full document HERE. SPANISH | ITALIAN