Achieving Sustainable Development Goal One: Panacea For Global Poverty

By 2030, the United Nations General assembly has agreed to achieve 17 goals believed to make the entire world a better place. This article provides a panacea for global poverty which is the number one sustainable development goal. The golden question about achieving them is — “are these goals attainable?”

There have been arguments as to why the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) had to replace the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015. Some have argued that this was not a good move. One of such is The Economist in 2015. It provided that, the new 17 SDGs are “sprawling, misconceived’ and “a mess” compared to the eight previous MDGs which they argued were succinct.

Irrespective of the arguments, it is important to note that — while the MDGs catered to proffering solutions for the global problems alone, the new SDGs ensures a sustainable solution. This means that while the former was designed to only deal with the problems, the latter is designed to deal with the causes of the problem.

As earlier stated, this article seeks to proffer solutions to the problem of poverty globally. Or better still, contribute its quota to already proffered solutions.

The Goal: End Poverty in All its Forms Everywhere

According to the SDGs knowledge platform, “Ending poverty requires universal social protection systems aimed at safeguarding all individuals throughout the life cycle.” There is also the requirement of providing specific measures targeted at curbing or minimizing the chances of vulnerability to disasters and also addressing beggared regions in every country in the world.

This is indeed a huge task and calls for a collective co-operation between the 193 countries that ratified the agreement.

As the United Nations captures the progress of poverty alleviation over the years, the way out can be deduced from the provided statistics.

The United Nations provides that the extreme rate of poverty has drastically reduced between the years 1990 and 2013. As at the time of writing this article, it is estimated that 11% of the world’s population or 783 million people live in abject poverty.

Also, it is provided that a proportion of world’s workers who live below the international poverty line, $1.90 a day diminished over the past 20 years. It is reported that these number reduced from 26.9 per cent in year 2000 to 9.2 per cent in 2017.

These statistics show that there is a feasibility of attaining a poverty free world come 2030. Provided that all hands are on deck and focus does not wane.

Although, there are major economic challenges that reoccur. These challenges gulp huge amount of funds that could be spent on practical strategies to reduce global poverty.

According to the UN, economic losses in 2017 amounts to over a whooping sum of $300 billion. This is recorded to be one of the biggest economic losses in history. Responsible for this are the three major hurricanes affecting the United States of America and several countries in the Caribbean.

Proffered Solutions To Global Poverty Alleviation

Poverty has been described by the United Nations to be “more than the lack of income and resources to ensure a sustainable livelihood. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making.”

The question is — how can sustainable solutions be derived?

Since poverty is a global problem, it requires a global solution. This means that every government of the world should be involved in tackling this problem.

This stems down to individual States and their government. They must formulate and execute policies aimed at:

1. Catering for EVERY citizen

That is, some sort of social protection and provision should be a top priority in ensuring that the level of poverty drastically reduces in the country. For instance, in oil producing states, every citizen should benefit immensely from crude revenues. This is very possible if a proper documentation and registration of every citizen can be achieved. This will ensure that every citizen is adequately taken care of. Every citizen should have a unique identification number which should be linked to their bank accounts to ensure ease of payments. Taking Nigeria for example, her NYSC program should serve as a model for catering for every citizen.

1. Improving the Agriculture Sector

Whether the world likes it or not, Agriculture is king to every sector of the economy. The Agriculture sector should be developed and given utmost priority. When there is a whole lot of money and no food, are we going to eat money when we are hungry?

1. Health care

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson,” the first wealth is health.” No sick man can enjoy money. The health care sector should be developed in such a way that it caters for the least man in the society at very affordable rates. Subsidies from the government should be included.

1. Ensuring Affordable Education

Nelson Mandela of blessed memory said — “Education is the key out of Poverty.” The government should develop a system that enables free education for all. At least, government schools from elementary to secondary level should be free for all or better yet, subsidized to the barest minimum. It is believed that once a child can read, the problem is half solved.

1. Restructuring

This refers to governments characterized by nepotism and unfair revenue allocations. Every tribe, region should benefit from the government. This means that everyone should be included in the plans of the government. Also, there should be a general inclusion of the general public when it comes to decision making.

1. Attracting Development Aid

In reality, collecting Aids from developed countries is not always in the best interest for the receiving country. This is because, there are always strings attached, there are always clauses which in turn will worsen the condition.

Also, most governments that seek for aid are corrupt. When these aid are received, they do not reach the hands of those who need them. Only a few share them and pocket them for their personal gain. Like Somalian President, Hassan Mohamud said to the International aid community, “Yes we are corrupt; yes we are incompetent; yes lawlessness is rife. But there is only one Somali government, and if you don’t treat us as a government, we will never become a government.”

This has informed the decision of aid organizations to cater to the rightful disbursement of aids just like is done in Haiti where aid governments maintain over 80% of the schools.

According to the correspondent, wealthy countries spend $91.5 billion per year, $7.6 billion per month, $2,940 per second on development aid. If one calculates what that amounts to over the past 50 years, one realizes that a whooping sum of $4.8 trillion has been spent on aid. A huge sum? Maybe, but it’s about the same as the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This brings to mind what Tupac Amaru shakur said- “They have money for wars but they cannot feed the poor.”

1. Using China’s industry-led poverty alleviation as a model

This should be an entire article on its own. China in the last years have played tremendous roles in alleviating poverty globally particularly in developing countries. It is said that China has single handedly saved over 80% of the world’s population from living below the poverty line. And it is still committed to lifting more people out of penury with its industry-led poverty alleviation program.

China’s Industry-led poverty alleviation program

Developing countries can learn or use this program as a model for their policy formulation and implementation. The Chinese believe that policy formulation is 10% while its implementation is 90%. China’s industry-led poverty alleviation program is a good model to emulate when tackling poverty per-state because of the results it has achieved.

According to Tan Weiping, the deputy-General of IPRCC, China has accelerated the development of new forms of poverty alleviation. Part of which is- tourism-based poverty alleviation, photovoltaic poverty alleviation, e-commerce poverty alleviation, and relocated-based poverty alleviation. This has enhanced local economic development.

Targeted poverty alleviation is a critical strategic step taken by China to eradicate poverty. Developing nations can learn from the Chinese wisdom and approach that has contributed immensely to the global reduction of poverty rather than wait for handouts.

China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation

China’s targeted poverty alleviation contains a set of systems designed to achieve the first sustainable development goals. These systems include:

1. Setting Clear Poverty reduction Goals

This involves achieving a guaranteed inflow of sufficient food and clothing, compulsory education, basic health and housing. Also security for the rural community.

1. The registration of poverty-stricken people. This enables the collection of accurate information of the poor population. This provides a clear picture of the poverty alleviation needs.
2. Implementing the targeted poverty alleviation strategy

According to Weiping, “To achieve accuracy in poverty alleviation objects, project arrangements, fund use, implementation of measures, dispatch of poverty reduction , dispatch of poverty reduction officials to villages, and effects of poverty reduction, we will carry out the “five-batch” policy to help” He further named the “five-batch” policies to be: industrial development, transfer employment, relocation, education and medical assistance.

China looks beyond its borders to eradicate poverty. Developing countries, especially LDCs have benefited from China’s assistance with no political strings attached.

Weiping provides that China over the past 60 years has supported 166 countries and international organizations with a whooping sum of 400 billion Yuan in aid.

He also added that “2,700 turnkey projects have been completed and over 600,000 aid workers have been dispatched overseas and more than 700 of them have sacrificed their lives for the development of other countries.”

In conclusion, based on a recent United Nations analysis, it is revealed that least developed countries (LDCs) might not be included among those who would have been free from poverty by 2030. Hence, drastic measures have to be taken by the international community.

Also, a Swedish statistician known as Hans Rosling has restored hope by showing why it is indeed feasible to rid our world of extreme poverty. As he puts it: “Compared with other enormous problems, like climate change or war, eradicating extreme poverty is peanuts.”

We at Elijah Oluwagbemiga Content Creation believe in the economist scale of preference and for poverty alleviation to lead the 17 Sustainable development goals (SDGs), it is attainable by year 2030.

What do you think?