"VAN" (Europe Bureau - Aleksey Vesyoliy) :: World’s population has reached 7.5 billion and the number is growing by 1.18 % per year, or approximately an additional 83 million people annually. There has been marked progress on reducing poverty over the past decades and nearly 1.1 billion people have moved out of extreme poverty since 1990.
In 2015, countries adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Goal Nr. 1: End poverty in all its forms. Goal Nr. 10: Reduced inequalities.
Despite decades of progress in reducing poverty, the world continues to suffer from substantial inequalities. Inequalities based on income, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, class, ethnicity, religion and opportunity continue to persist across the world, within and among countries. Global inequality is on the rise. In recent decades, income inequality has increased in nearly all countries, but at different speeds. Income inequality varies greatly across world regions. It is lowest in Europe and highest in the Middle East. Since 1980, income inequality has increased rapidly in North America, China, India and Russia, according to World Inequality Report 2018.
We cannot achieve sustainable development and make the planet better for everyone if people are excluded from opportunities, services, and the chance for a better life.
Inequality threatens longterm social and economic development, harms poverty reduction and destroys people’s sense of fulfilment and self-worth. Inequality is constraining national economies and destabilizing global collaboration in ways that put humanity’s most critical achievements and aspirations at risk. For those who have been able to move out of poverty, progress is often temporary: economic shocks, food insecurity and climate change threaten to rob them of their hard-won gains and force them back into poverty. Inequality is keeping people trapped in poverty.
In today’s world, we are all interconnected. Even the richest countries still have communities living in abject poverty. A recent United Nations International Children's Fund report noted growing inequality among children in several high-income countries. The human cost of inequality is devastating. The growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and fueling public anger across the globe. An estimated 69 million children under five years of age will die from mostly preventable causes. Rural women are three times more likely to die while giving birth than women in urban centres. Persons with disabilities are the world’s largest minority.
How poverty is defined and measured varies across the world. However, there are both conceptual and practical problems in making international comparisons of poverty. Because countries define and measure poverty differently, consistent comparisons can be difficult. The national poverty line for a country is typically a monetary threshold below which a person's minimum basic needs cannot be met, taking into account the country's economic and social circumstances. Poverty lines not only vary widely by country but they are also often revised as countries develop: richer countries typically have higher poverty lines than poorer ones.
To aggregate and compare poverty rates across countries, poverty thresholds that reflect the same real standard of living in each country are used. The $1.90 a day poverty line, which reflects the value of national poverty lines in some of the poorest countries, is often referred to as the extreme poverty line. For added perspective, since 2017 the World Bank has also been tracking poverty at $3.20 a day, the typical line for lower-middle-income countries, and $5.50 a day, typical for upper-middle-income countries.
Poverty has many dimensions, but its causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and high vulnerability of certain population to disasters, diseases and other phenomena which prevent them from being productive.
Poor people face higher risks of malnutrition and death in childhood and lower odds of receiving key health care interventions. The human cost of inequality is devastating. The growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and fueling public anger across the globe.
Children are more likely to be poor than adults
All children have the right to a standard of living that ensures their full development. Unfortunately, millions of children around the world live in poverty, particularly children with disabilities, children from larger families and those in deprived rural areas. However, this issue also affects developed countries. Right now there are 30 million children growing up poor in the world’s richest countries.
The World Health Organization estimates that about 16 000 children under the age of 5 die each day from preventable causes associated with extreme poverty. This is nearly 750 children an hour. These causes of death include insufficient nutrition, lack of access to clean water, inadequate health care services, malaria, dysentery, and neonatal infection. These are diseases and health problems that are essentially non-existent in the developed world.
The evidence is clear. Monetary poverty is closely linked to a range of serious risks for individuals and societies. Governments are cutting their spending on social protection, with benefits for children and families being eroded by austerity measures in the wake of the global financial crisis. Poverty is a violation of children’s rights. Being raised in poverty places children at higher risk for a wide range of problems, for example, the poorest children are four times less likely than the richest children to be enrolled in primary education across developing countries. Poverty hurts children’s cognitive development and leads to lower income and health in adulthood.
Poverty in childhood can have life-long consequences
Children are slower to develop reading skills when households cannot afford books, toys and learning materials. As well the chronic stress of growing up poor appears to have a direct impact on the brain. The longer children live in poverty, the greater their levels of stress and the greater the impact. The poorest children less likely to access health care or complete their education and more likely to suffer from poor nutrition. Children who do not reach their full potential cannot contribute to social, political and economic growth. Those who grow up in poverty are more likely to be poor when they are older, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and disadvantage.
Nearly a billion people unable to read a book or sign their names and nearly two-thirds are women. Gender equality and women's empowerment are essential aspects of community development. The economic empowerment of women is particularly vital to closing the gender gap in agriculture and ensuring women’s full and equal access to land and other productive resources, as well as services, finances, technology, skills and employment.
Countries with fast-growing economies where the rule of law is weak run the risk of sliding into instability. There is an urgent need to pursue an environmentally sustainable path to poverty reduction, economic growth and prosperity. Vulnerable children benefit the most when countries invest in effective social protection. It is in every government’s long-term interest to invest in children and in child-sensitive social protection to prevent, manage and overcome the poverty that threatens their well-being.
Poverty is not the only issue at stake and recent global development trends have highlighted that development must go hand-in-hand with defending human rights and freedoms. The importance of international cooperation in order to support sustainable development is obvious. Economic growth is an important weapon in the fight against poverty and hunger in developing countries.
There is growing consensus that economic growth is not sufficient to reduce poverty if it is not inclusive and if it does not involve the three dimensions of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental. To reduce inequality, policies should be universal in principle, paying attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized populations too.
Reducing poverty and inequality require transformative change. Greater efforts are needed to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, and invest more in health, education, social protection and decent jobs especially for young people, migrants and other vulnerable communities.
Society as a whole benefits when more people are being productive and contributing to their country’s growth
Productive employment and “decent work” are key elements towards poverty reduction. Decent work means opportunities for everyone to get work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social inclusion. Unemployment can lead to unrest and disrupt peace if it is left unaddressed.
Within countries, it is important to empower and promote inclusive social and economic growth. Governments and other stakeholders can also promote safe, regular and responsible migration, including through planned and well-managed policies, for the millions of people who have left their homes seeking better lives due to war, discrimination, poverty, lack of opportunity and other drivers of migration
Your active engagement can make a difference in addressing poverty and eradicating inequality. It ensures that your rights are promoted and that your voice is heard, that inter-generational knowledge is shared, and that innovation and critical thinking are encouraged at all ages to support transformational change in people’s lives and communities.
Publication author: Sintija Bernava
Chairwoman of the Board of Non Governmental Organisation "Donum Animus" (Latvia)
Non Governmental Organisation "Donum Animus" is the only Entity from Latvia holding Special Consultative Status of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations
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