Reducing poverty

The eradication of poverty in the world requires decisive national actions and international cooperation to promote full employment as a basic priority of all economic and social policies, enabling all men and women to attain secure and sustainable livelihoods through freely chosen productive employment and work.

Poverty is the most widespread violation of human rights in the world. It exists not only in the developing countries, but is also a dramatic and hidden reality in the industrialized countries. An estimated 698 million people — or 9 per cent of the global population — still live in extreme poverty, which means they are surviving on less than US$1.90 a day. Particularly affected are disadvantaged and underrepresented groups – indigenous people, people with disabilities, women, children, youth, and the elderly. Hunger, climate change and the COVID-19 crisis are inextricably linked to poverty. Processes of impoverishment inherent in the global economic system are resulting in increasing inequity, social injustice and violence worldwide.

Taking both rural and urban poverty into account, Development Initiatives estimates that the number of people living in extreme poverty has decreased from almost two billion in 1990 to an estimated 1.1 billion people, or 16% of the global population in 2010. "In 2017 (the most recent year for which global estimates have been published by the World Bank), 714 million people were living in extreme poverty – 9% of the global population" Extreme poverty continued to decline with 690 million people living in extreme poverty in 2019. However due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic downturn that happened globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty increased by an estimated 50 million between 2019-2020. As the economy started to recover, the number of people living in extreme poverty fell during 2021, but still an estimated eight million more people are living in poverty in 2022 than in 2019."

At the regional level, China and India, with its rapid income growth, continues to be the most successful at alleviating poverty. Poverty has worsened in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Moreover, on the basis of present growth projections and assuming the distribution of income remains unchanged, the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institute projects little signs of decline in the number living in poverty in Latin America and Africa.

Rising poverty is most serious in Africa. "Around 460 million people on the continent were living below the extreme poverty line of US$1.90 a day in 2022. Since the continent had approximately 1.4 billion inhabitants, roughly a third of Africa’s population was in extreme poverty that year." According to Development Initiatives, "for 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people living in extreme poverty has increased between 2010 and 2020. The largest increases have occurred in Angola (9.4 million), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (8.8 million) and South Sudan (7 million). In 2021, 66% of the global population living in extreme poverty live in countries in sub-Saharan Africa." The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) projects that "by the end of 2022, poverty will stand at 32.1% of the population (201 million people) and extreme poverty at 13.1% (82 million), which points to a slight decline in overall poverty and a slight increase in extreme poverty versus 2021, due to the combined effects of economic growth, labor market dynamics and inflation."

The unfavourable developments in Africa and Latin America were partly offset by favourable trends in Asia. More than 407 million people across China and India moved out of extreme poverty between 2010 and 2021.  The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), however, states that "an estimated 233 million people in Asia and the Pacific still live below the international extreme poverty line (less than $1.90 a day). Current investment in social protection in the region remains inadequate, less than half of the global average and over half of the population in Asia and the Pacific do not have access to any social protection scheme."

Although global poverty has shown a dramatic decrease over the past decades, the Global North and South must continue to strive toward realizing the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 1) to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030.  Each country should set its own standard, its own definition of poverty, and then direct its energies to ensure that by its own standard, development is accompanied by a reduction in the number of people living in conditions of severe poverty and deprivation. National and regional partnership should occur to ensure every country is working in step with each other in eradicating poverty. This is a readily attainable goal, and it is one that is so central to what development is all about that its enunciation as international policy could serve as a rallying point for renewed national commitment and enhanced international co-operation.

There are hundreds of worldwide organisations working toward the alleviation and eradication of poverty. The Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries is one such organisation. HIVOS is a development organization which works towards just, inclusive and life sustaining societies where people have equal access to opportunities, rights and resources. For this purpose financial support is given to 449 partner organizations in 38 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Their focus is on Climate Change, specifically locally-shaped climate solutions that can bring about transformational change; Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; and Civic Rights in a Digital Age.

In 1992 the United Nations General Assembly unanimously proclaimed October 17 as International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. In 1995 Secretary General Boutros-Ghali announced 1996 as the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. This called for member states to develop precise definitions of absolute poverty for their own countries; devise and implement national poverty eradication plans to address structural causes, and to promote actions within national plans for employment creation, increased health and education services, and other measures to generate household income and afford access for people to productive and economic opportunities. At the 1995 UN Social Summit in Copenhagen 117 nations agreed the need to "eradicate" poverty and not just "alleviate" it.

The 10 year period 1996-2006 was declared the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty with the theme "Eradicating poverty is an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind".  The second decade was proclaimed from 2008-2017 under the theme “Full employment and decent work for all" and the third United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty was proclaimed from 2018-2027 and carries the theme "Accelerating global actions for a world without poverty". This falls in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.