World leaders are gathering at the United Nations this week, at the midway point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to evaluate stalled progress and talk about how to get us back on track. This means doing more of what has already been proven to work.
The numbers don’t look good.
The Sustainable Development Goals launched by the U.N. in 2015 set the ambitious target of eradicating extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $2.15 a day as goal No. 1. While there has been some improvement — in 2019, 8.5% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, down from 10.8% in 2015 — recent crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, and escalating climate impacts, have pushed us backward.
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About the authors
Shameran Abed
Shameran Abed is the executive director of BRAC International, the world’s largest global south-led NGO.
Esther Duflo
Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the department of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
